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Cruel Summer - G.S.

Synopsis. The five times Gojo Satoru would rather díe than marry you, his (infuriatingly pretty, oh-so-irresistible) arranged fiancée - and the one time he comes back from déath to.

Pairing. Gojo Satoru x Reader

Content. MDNI, fem!reader, arranged marriage AU, enemies-to-Iovers, 5 + 1 things, PINING, Geto and Shoko cameos, matíng press, big D, tummy buIges, GOJO’S POWERS, creampíes, maIe squírting, oraI (fem rec.), face-sítting, he’s FÉRAL, fíngering, chokíng, spítting, p talking, down bad Gojo, slight exhíbitíonism, making him PÚSSYDRÚNK, those Gege sketches, slight spoiIers, HAPPY ENDING, swéaring, pet names.

Word count. 11.5k

A/N. Oh y’all don’t know how those Gege drawings had me, I just had to…

“I’m never marrying you.”

“I’d rather marry a special grade curse than you.”

“Huh- I’m much hotter than a fuc-”

SLAM!

That sharp, pointed noise of a ceramic teacup hitting the winding table you were seated at had almost become ritual at this point. The first few jabs of an argument escaping the mouths of both you and the other heir being a signal for at least one of the grim elders to interrupt before either of you could ruin a four-hundred-year-old contract.

And with a stubborn huff, you’re leaning back into your seat on the tatami mat to appraise the boy opposite you.

Everything from his cropped, snowy bangs to the way his summer-blue eyes blazed into you. Honestly, if you closed your ears every time he spoke, he could almost be- nope, he was sticking his tongue out at you now.

The ever-mature Gojo Satoru; new head of the ancient Gojo clan, freshly-enrolled student at Tokyo Jujutsu High.

And your soon-to-be husband.

All cooped up in this traditional meeting room, one where generations of matches had been made and very rarely broken.

A coming-of-age ceremony, where the two of you had officially been declared leaders - and an engagement.

Your engagement.

It was a business transaction of sorts. One that didn’t require any input from either marrying parties, according to the council of elders who sat upon either side of the table and stroked their beards in smug success.

You’d heard that several clans had physically fought over this chance, before the Gojo clan ultimately chose you. And you knew why - you were one of the very few that had something to lose.

The chance to attend Tokyo Jujutsu High.

In short, play sorcerer all you want for three years, and in return they’d be free to enforce an old betrothal alliance between your two clans and demand a powerful new heir to jujutsu society - a win-win.

Though- looking at your reluctant fiancé, still donned in his dark silk robes from his ceremony, you wonder if you really should have just run away as your friends from Kyoto had urged you to.

And one look at Gojo’s scrunched-up face told you he might just be thinking the same thing. Delicate features marred. Pouty lips nothing of the whispered legends you’d heard of the young prodigy—a monster. A blessing. The strongest.

He sounded very much his age as he echoes, “I’m never marrying you.”

You open your mouth- “And I-”

“-will be part of young Satoru’s high school journey!” Your father puts a hand on your shoulder, lightly squeezing. Becoming part of the Gojo clan was just as big of an opportunity for him as it was for you. Apparently. “We’re sure the young couple will get over their pre-wedding jitters by the time they’re back from graduation to continue their duties- right?”

A tap on your figure, that was your cue to answer.

Instead, you just turn your face towards Gojo, look him serenely in the eyes, the sweetest practiced smile on your face- and flip him off. Pre-wedding jitters your ass.

The gasps that cloud the stuffy summer meeting chamber atmosphere were almost comical. As if you’d just sprung out of your seat and made an attempt on the poor, sheltered heir’s life. Out of the corner of your vision, you think you see one member of the council clutch his heart and faint-

“Pffft–!” That slight snigger rips through the air in sheer contrast, and every pair of eyes in the room peaks curiously over at the way Gojo muffles a slight chuckle.

Your eyes widen, you think you liked him better like this.

Almost as if he’d just sensed your thoughts, he’s schooling his face into one of a steady lack of emotion, lightly clearing his throat.

Though, you catch the pointed tips of his ears scorching cherry-red.

“Where is the ring, boy.” Gojo’s father was a stern man, and his commanding voice was just as cut-throat. Seated right beside his son in a mirror image of you and your own father, he didn’t have to be loud to make Gojo’s spine stiffen almost unnoticeably still.

Ramrod-straight, silent- the younger version of the former head stuffs one hand between the fabrics of his yukata.

And you weren’t sure what sort of ring might be bestowed on you by the famed Gojo clan - you didn’t allow yourself to imagine it. Perhaps a clean silver to match their emblem? Perhaps studded with sapphires for their new head’s irises?

Whatever it may have been, you don’t get to find out.

Because in that moment, Gojo Satoru flashes you with the obnoxious plastic pink of a ring pop. The very same kind you’d sneak out of your estate to buy from that little corner shop down the road, fifty yen maximum.

“Satoru.”

Make that twenty yen.

“What?” His voice almost lilts into a whine as he responds to his father - trying oh-so-hard to pretend nothing was wrong, and this was totally the silver heirloom engagement ring of his family. Just…smelling slightly of artificial strawberry.

Gojo senior pinches his nosebridge, “I swear to- if you are not serious about that damn- school-”

“It’s alright!” Your fiancé seems just as bewildered at your interruption as you are, and you narrow your eyes enough to tell him that if he messed up your chances at going to Jujutsu High then his blood would be on your hands. Strongest or not. Reaching out your left arm, “I don’t mind, truly.”

And while the rest of the chamber murmurs, Gojo leans over the table to slip his mocking engagement ring onto your finger. To be married. To be his.

Holding your hand in his larger, slightly roughened ones, “I’d rather die than marry you.” He’s crouching to whisper in a heated pant, each syllable sticking to your skin. Only mostly meaning it.

And you whisper back into his furiously pink ear—“And I’d rather marry a special grade curse.”

Gojo Satoru met you in the summer, like one of those heat-induced fever dreams.

Okay, perhaps that wasn’t the best comparison- but in his defense, penning flowery literature was never his best subject after he nearly caused a clan rift by comparing Zenin Jinichi to a bullfrog.

It was a compliment, really!

But you were a whirlwind, one that left his world tilted and his skin sizzling with heat in the aftermath- in a bad way, of course! You were a bad fever dream - a pretty one, sure, dressed in your most decadent cerulean robes and a withering glare - but still one of those you think back to even months later.

Even nearly a year later when he’s sixteen and had insisted on walking up the ancient stone steps of Tokyo Jujutsu High without his entourage of attendants and elders.

“Hello hello—” Gojo’s running his pale fingers through even paler, short hair to free it of pinkish cherry blossom petals. Looming around the naturally green gardens of campus, “Where is- oh!”

Just as soon as he was about to tug his opaque, round sunglasses off to inspect whether it would impress his fellow students- that lady working at the store said so, so it must be, he bought twenty-five! Gojo spots a figure leaned against one of the ancient oaks by the dorms.

That velvety blue of the dress code was one that he could recognize anywhere after so many years of yearning for it.

And before he can stop himself, he’s sprinting towards the dark blob as fast as his lanky legs could take him. Calling out, “Yoohooo–! Your one and only favorite classmate is here~”

“Ieri–!”

“Wait-”

“You-”

So caught up in both your excitements to meet your new classmate - one of Utahime’s friends who happened to be your age - you two didn’t notice the one, single thing that you two couldn’t deny. Right by your side.

Your betrothed.

You snarl, stopping short. “What are you doing here-” And he does, too, hands haughtily planted on either side of his slender hips as he leans in close.

Snapping at you, the brief glimpse of his electric blue eyes sends goosebumps down your body. “I could ask the same from you. Couldn’t resist my charms so you had to follow me, hm~?”

“I’m here to learn, obviously. Why are you here- to get exorcised?”

“Take that back! I’m here to learn, too.”

You knew that it was part of your betrothal contract that the two of you would attend Tokyo Jujutsu High, you knew that the two of you would end up seeing each other one way or the other. And you already knew your clan stowed that stupid pink ring away deeply at the bottom of your suitcase (where you’d hopefully never have to see it ever again).

But you still raise a brow at the flashy designer stamping on his shades. “…Really?”

And Gojo could’ve taken disgust- hell, he would have even welcomed anger.

But that genuine, wondering confusion in your tone as you swept your eyes up n’ down his defensive stature made him flush- “H-how dare you- duel me. Right here, right now.”

“Haaah? You would duel your future wife?”

“Scared?”

“No, just wondering why you didn’t ask sooner.”

Scoffing, both of you dart your heads in unison to the girl with the shortly-cut hair that was following your argument like the fiercest of tennis matches. Immediately turning ashen-faced at your attention, and damn near devastated when Gojo happily keens. “Bob girl! Can you keep score of-”

“No.” She deadpans.

Frankly, you wondered just how she managed to sound as if she’s seen every horror there was to see in the world already. Possibly because she already had, right there, but Shoko doesn’t spend her time answering your unspoken question.

Too busy digging in her jacket pocket for-

“Cigarettes!” Gojo squeals, never having seen someone his age take a puffed-out drag of one so close-up before. The clan always detested anything that would ‘stain the purities of the body’- and right now, Ieri Shoko looked like she couldn’t handle sitting there one more second longer if she didn’t have one.

He points a lengthy finger your way, accusatory. “I blame you for this- somehow- you must have corrupted her with your ways and made her feel all strange like you did me.”

You roll your eyes, “Yeah? I blame you for our marriage-”

And he’s uttering for the second time, “Oh yeah? Well, I’m never marrying-”

But just as Gojo was about to whirl on his feet and flick out a few cursed tendrils of energy like he’d taught himself. He was thinking of calling this one ‘Blue’ after that shade of your robes the first time you met, and the way you were about to be it’s first-

A deep voice cuts off his train of traitorous thoughts- “Yeah- mhm, I’ve gotta go. My new classmates are here.”

A new-comer.

And the black-haired boy looks as if he’d no sooner flip his cellphone closed to end his ongoing call and pretend he never walked out of the dorms than join whatever mess he’d just walked in on.

Amethyst eyes slowly swivelling underneath his tied-back bangs to look at a fuming Gojo…to an equally-matched you…to Shoko, already chain-smoking her fifth cigarette away by now.

“Actually…could you stay on the line for a bit longer, momma.”

“It’s legal if it’s personal property, isn’t it?”

You groan, “It’s not your personal-”

He quickly taps the polished handle- “Now it is.”

“That’s…” You’re squinting your eyes, as if it will somewhat blur and spare you the sight of Gojo Satoru attempting to steal that shiny red moped parked at the outer edge of campus. If anything happened, you didn’t want to go through the hassle of getting called in as a witness, at least.

Shoko puts you out of your misery as the one voice of reason, “Yeah, that’s a lie.”

Geto cups a hand over his gaze to fight off the breaking rays of sunset, voice amused. “Well, I don’t see any cameras here.”

“Perfect—!” Gojo sings, clapping his hands together as he stares over his ridiculously gaudy glasses. It was nearing the end of first year, early December wind your fifth uninvited guest as the four of you chose to stay over in the dorms for your first high school holidays. “The key’s still here so we can sneak out, buy me the best birthday cake in Tokyo- no, in all of Japan, and sneak back in right before grump ol’ Yaga-”

“Sneak off from who-”

And, there, was aforementioned grumpy ol’ Yaga.

Running at full speed toward your deviant little group from the top of Jujutsu High’s stairway. Which, considering the tough, rocky path, wasn’t too fast at all- but the four of you just bolt.

Faster than you’ve seen anyone move during any cursed mission, if you’re being quite honest.

Shoko running, phone in hand with a suspiciously blinking camera light that meant she was recording the entire ordeal. Geto urgently twisting his fingers into what you’d learned was his summoning technique - he’d meant to call his Rainbow Dragon for a rapid escape, but ended up manifesting the massive, sleek form of his Giant Catfish who scooped him up into the murky depths of its mouth and slithered away.

And Gojo?

Oh, Gojo was letting out the most impressive high pitched squeal before he’s slamming something hard, and helmet-shaped on top of your head.

“Wh- hey!” Before you can even register it, two massive hands are grabbing onto your waist to sit you down on the cushioned back of the moped. Backwards. “Wrong way-”

“I don’t know how to drive!”

Your feet hitting the side, your back hitting Gojo’s larger one, it takes only a singular split-second for him to jam that lil’ key and speed off down the stony path of the campus. With Professor Yaga yelling from behind and you yelping, “Gojo I’m gonna kill you-”

“My bad, I meant to grab Yaga.” He’s grumbling at you from the front, the roll of his eyes practically carrying on the whipping wind.

“Yaga would’ve known how to seat a kidnapee-”

“You want to touch me?”

“…No”

“Scared?”

Your wide eyes watch the disorienting way the lush nature of the Jujutsu High passes by, as if you were stuck in a kaleidoscope. “No.”

He only hums, finally getting used to controlling the vehicle enough that he was mostly sure he wouldn’t crash into every upcoming tree. “Prove it~”

Wordlessly, Gojo slows down enough that you won’t be part of his definitely-opportune traffic accident as you shift your body ‘round. The faux leather cover creaking! once you rover your palms onto his shoulders for balance- “There.”

“Ever seen anyone hold onto the driver like this? Ya prude-”

“Fine-” You’re cutting him off- cutting yourself off by clinging your hands in a neat knot around Gojo’s firm core. And through the flashing shard of the side-view mirrors, you catch the way his ears burn. “You better not get an erection.”

Okay, only partly sure he wouldn’t crash into an oncoming tree.

The deep timbre of his voice cracks- “H-hey!” You knew how to push his buttons just so. “Gods- why’d it have to be you?”

“And why’d it have to be you.”

The part he doesn’t say out loud is that it would’ve been stranger if it was anyone else.

Not that you needed to hear it- of course not, you were still his infuriating, bold- stubborn fiancée who was forced onto him, after all.

Yet, to Gojo who’s held close by you, and to you who was clinging onto him for dear life as the haven of Jujutsu High melts into the bustling city, he doesn’t think he’s had a more peaceful birthday.

It takes fifteen minutes for the two of you to ride to that cozy convenience store on the outskirts of Tokyo, and what felt like hours (but in reality was five minutes) to give up on convincing the elderly clerk that you both were totally not a couple out for an after-school joyride.

And then - as if the universe was directing its very own prank at your expense - only three for Gojo to grow impatient and throw a tantrum swerving the moped to and fro until you finally tore open that packet of sparklers bought as birthday celebrations.

Honestly, what else did you expect from a man who organized his own surprise birthday party?

“Cake? Check. These things? Check. Happy birthday to me~” He’s tipping the starlit firework upside down to draw bands of gold in the darkening air. “Must be in the top seventeen birthdays I’ve ever had-”

You scoff, your breath emitted as a small cloud. “You’ve only had seventeen.”

“It just dropped down to eighteenth thanks to you-” And you swear you see the strongest outline a dick in the air with his sparkler, you swear he purposefully made it bigger than the one you’d drawn. “And nineteenth if we get arrested for the moped.”

In response, you draw the biggest dick. One with his face.

You were parked on the side of a lazy road, only the occasional car and Gojo’s wonderment breaking the tense silence - perhaps the most civil one you’ve had in years.

It was odd being out with Gojo Satoru. No sniping over your betrothal, and if he tried hard enough- he could pretend that there was none. That there might be. But for now, the two of you were just two classmates sneaking out to ransack your local stores, “If we do get arrested, I’m blaming you.”

He nods, dramatically. Bumping his broad deltoid against yours, “As husband, that would be my duty.”

“So…” You’re blinking, your own sparkler’s ashy ends drooping onto the ground. There was no doubt on your mind that Geto would not have mercy on the two of you for finishing about half of these sticks. But you had something else on your mind right now, “You’re saying you don’t mind-”

“Wait. wait, no, that’s not what I meant. O-of course I mind!” And Gojo doesn’t give you the time to call out the way his breath gasps- the way his voice shakes, the way he’s flushing. Furious, “Never- in my right mind- would I marry you.”

A ring of gold from the dying sunlight wraps around your irises and irritates him so much when you finally look away to rustle your hand inside the numerous shopping bags.

Airily musing, “Then, I guess as my not-ever-husband you wouldn’t want your not-ever-wife to gift you this-”

“I take it back, I’m marrying you.”

If the elders of your clan knew that all it took for Gojo Satoru to accept the betrothal would be a packet of extra, extra-caramelized popcorn then they would have had the two of you married off by yesterday.

“Make no mistake, this was meant for me.” It wasn’t. You did eye this particular brand too long before swiping it off the shelf and paying when he wasn’t looking. You did think of nothing but the plastic ring burning a hole deeply inside your skirt pocket. And the way he’d whined and thrown himself on the floor of the nearby theatre on your last outing to the city, when Geto refused to buy him caramel popcorn.

So you’d bought it- to shut him up and spare your poor throbbing temples, if anything. Of course.

But you can’t help the words that tumble out of your mouth at the glowing expression gracing his features. “But- here- happy…birthday. I’m not getting you anything for the next ten years.”

He’s silent.

Pondering.

And he can’t think of anything more flat than a little ‘thank you.’

The red, red metallic bag with enough sugar content to put anyone but Gojo Satoru into a coma sits carefully where you’d plopped it into his arms. And he looks at it with the sort of twinkle in his eyes that you’d never seen before. “Well…If I brought Yaga instead of you, he wouldn’t have bought me this.”

“I take it back-”

“Thank you.” Almost as if realizing those awful, treacherous two words himself, he backtracks with a sputter. Strange, he should bug Shoko into doing some sort of heart check-up on him soon. “W-we’re married for as long as I eat these. And after that? Divorce, sweetheart.”

Pretending to wipe your forehead in relief, “Thank goodness-”

“Oi-”

“What-”

And with your grumblings and partially-filled bags in tow, he’s fastening the singular helmet on you - so fast that you think he might’ve just taken advantage of his powers to do so.

Just to watch you strangle out in what was definite annoyance as he pets the plastic top as if you were a child. Smack, smack!

“I’d be a good husband- not that you’d ever know.” Gojo sticks his tongue out at you, vrrrrr—ing the moped engine so that your snarky reply gets drowned out. “And next time I am bringing Yaga instead.”

He takes back those words soon enough when Yaga catches the two of you right at the gates of Jujutsu High. Trying to race back away on his brand-new moped.

“So- you see” Long, white lashes flutter rapidly, “Take pity on your poor, sheltered student. The Gojo elders really didn’t teach me-”

“I should’ve set the mission sooner so that I could be rid of-”

Geto pipes up above Professor Yaga’s booming lecture, a hand raised in every ounce of solemn discipline that his best friend didn’t show. Another mission. Constant. “In my defense, it was his idea.”

Valentine’s day. Also the early first day of second year; and it only brought about more missions, a couple more students as first-years, and a slightly-longer haired thorn at your side betrothed. And, apparently, this - three annoying, grating voices muffling through the gaps of your dorm’s front door.

“I call shots on not answering to that.” Utahime pipes up where she was sprawled out on your bed and knitting her brows at your interrupted girl time. It’s not often that she gets time off from Kyoto to bother her only friends in Tokyo.

Snickering at Shoko’s absent-minded ‘ditto’ and Haibara’s- why was he even here, anyway - “I could! But maybe you should do it, he is your fiancé!”

Utahime cackles, face twisting from mirth to disgust when she inspects that plastic ring from where she’d dug it up from your drawer. “On Valentine’s day, too- oh I would rather die if I were you.”

It takes you a few moments to realize that all three occupants of your bedroom were staring at you for an answer. Pointing at yourself, “M-me?” Facing Haibara, “And why do you know that- you’ve been here for a day.”

He smiles, dazzling. “Ah, Gojo-senpai was telling us- it was why Nanami was trying to call home and leave.”

“Oooo, you heard the man.” Shoko presses a few buttons on her phone, and you hear the suspicious beep–! of the camera starting. Only incriminating herself further when she’s raising it upwards and flapping her hands forwards to urge you to open the door.

You groan, “Next time, we are not having girl’s night in my roo- wait.” And it had never caused you any trouble to leave and enter your dorm, it had never taken you more than a gentle push to open your door. So why was it that it just refused to open right now- “What the-”

It’s as if the door was locked from the outside somehow.

Shoko leans in further with her recording camera as you prod, as you turn your shoulder to hit the wooden pane and shove-

“Why- isn’t this-” You’re hissing through grit teeth, feet planting firmly on the surface and cracking open the bedroom door inch by inch. Gasping, “-open-ing–!”

And the sight before you was one you’d remembered for years.

Not just because smack-dab front n’ center to your vision was a pathetically kneeling Gojo Satoru, cowering in front of your looming teacher- but because of what was actually blocking your entryway.

It wasn’t some lock on the outside as you’d suspected, it wasn’t a large desk or anything of the sort. It was a massive, heaping pile of buttons.

Gold with bits of purple. So many that it was almost as tall as your door.

“What. The. Hell.” Your deadpan voice cuts Gojo off in the midst of some complaint to Yaga about ‘why is it named the Vessel Mission anyway, that’s stupid.’ And three sets of eyes snap to you as they finally register your entrance.

“Ah…” Geto’s the first one to break the silence of your impromptu staring match, even though Gojo was pointedly staring away. Eyes twitching the longer his best friend stared at the mountain of buttons on your doorstep, he looked exhausted. “Satoru, care to explain?”

He’s gulping, “You see, this all has a very reasonable explanation and a very reasonable line of thinking-”

“It’s all Satoru’s fault-”

“What-”

“Of course, it is.” Yaga rubs his aching temples, as he often seemed to do whenever he was around his group of second-years for just a minute too long. The older man turns to you with a weary, tired expression - and you make note of his dark circles, “This is the fifth pile of second buttons I cleaned from your door today- this hour.”

Ah, that explained it.

And it feels like your brain had just short-circuited, “Oh…wait- second buttons-?” Nevermind how he’d come across so many. Bought, most likely.

“I told you the elders taught me nothing-” Gojo squawks, scrambling onto his feet. He’s flailing his hands about, it was not his fault he didn’t know that second button meant…a confession. Or the fact that Geto hadn’t bothered to tell him and only watched with an easy smile as he made a fool of himself. “It was a prank- a prank! And his idea- he helped! I was going to block your door with buttons-”

“-second buttons.”

“-and make you all huffy and puffy that way you get-”

“-on Valentine’s day.” You’re finishing off, arms crossed. Carefully scrutinizing up at him- he hadn’t come across a growth spurt since last semester, he’d rammed into one at full speed. You shudder, in disgust, surely. “Did the elder’s hypnotize you or is there something you’re not telling me…”

And he hates it.

He hates how you look right through him in a way that induces some sort of heart condition in him- and Gojo would know, he’s visited every doctor in Tokyo just because of it. They all laughed.

One even wrote up his letter of resignation.

Sputtering, ears pink in anger- and Gojo was glad that his pale hair had grown out just enough to cover it. Strangely. “Y-you wish, ex-wife.”

You’re swatting the back of his soft locks, and Geto doesn’t note how Gojo seemed to have put down limitless so you could swat him.

“Dickhead.”

“Delinquent.”

“Blind mouse-”

Gasping, he clutches onto the frame of his shades. “Oh, now I really don’t wanna marry you-”

Yaga’s had enough.

“Enough!”

One of the veins near the side of his forehead nearly pops, and you step back with a wince at the oncoming scream- Gojo shuffling behind as if he was bravely offering you up for sacrifice.

“Enough- enough with the- the confessions-” Yaga spears a finger straight at Gojo’s directions and speaks over his protests. “-and the flirting! Flirt after the mission-” Then at you, and you could hear your friends cackling from either side. “Detention for everyone!”

Dammit- another line on your divorce document.

You didn’t get to ‘flirt’ after that Star Plasma mission - not that you would, but still.

In fact, you didn’t get to do all that much after tasting death so close to your little haven at Tokyo Jujutsu High.

And life goes on, sometimes leaving those behind.

And other times honing others who choose to stay and snap-

“It’s Suguru.”

“I know.”

The defection of Geto Suguru. The murder of his parents. His mother.

Your voice was more empty than he’d ever heard it- and he wanted you to scream at him, he wanted you to sob. Anything and everything other than the trained, stable tone that clashed against everything he was feeling right now.

But you only stare out into the yolky yellow tint beaming over the sprawling grounds. Sat on the flat, stone staircase of campus with your knees hugged to your chest- and he was close enough on the steps to hear your low mutter. “I’ll be leaving, too.”

Gojo’s head snaps to you- “What?”

“It’s my clan.” You’re swallowing, refusing to look at him directly. And that in and of itself almost hurt as much as when you did- and, for perhaps the first time, he’d rather have his heart race in those strange little palpitations. Right now, it was just heavy. “And yours. They don’t think it’s safe for a ‘future Gojo bride’ to be so close to danger.”

“Then we won’t marry.” He’s declaring, snowy brows set stubbornly.

“I know.” You lilt your head back to watch the sluggishly swimming clouds above, likely the last time you will from here. The council will be here tomorrow, and with them, your departure. You had that silly pink ring on your little finger, he notices. “I’m leaving.”

“I already said we won’t-”

“No, dickhead. I’m leaving.”

Widened, quivering blue peripherals lock onto you- and Gojo’s rosy lips part into a soft oh!

He knew what you meant- hell, when he first wanted to enroll in this damn school, he’d threatened to leave the clan over and over until they’d finally relented. And suddenly he’s hit with the loss of his little group - no more missions, no more convenience store runs, no more you.

You were to graduate in a year, with only half the students left in both your grade and the one below. Nanami wasn’t even going to become a sorcerer anymore, not after Haibara.

And he knew - he just felt - that you won’t be there for it. That you might never be.

How he wished to run, too.

“Utahime’s friends with that one special grade sorcerer- Yuki Tsukumo. I’m leaving with her today to continue training my own way.” You’re continuing, hands flexing in your lap. “And leaving the clan. Officially.”

Huffing, “What? Gonna leave your poor husband at the altar—?”

“Like I’ve always wanted to.”

“Without even a kiss for the bride?” And he doesn’t know why he says it. Even more, he doesn’t know why he holds the line of your gaze and can’t bear to look away, even as his heart starts up that familiarly strange ba-dump–! rattling his chest.

The tips of his ears tinging the very same blood-red as the sun now, Gojo thinks he can hear his eardrums whistling once you lean in. Once you close your eyes. And once you press your lips to his plush, soft ones for a mere single second.

“There-” You’re murmuring, trying to sound stern even though the waver in your voice gives you away. “Now you’ve been deflowered and can’t complain. You’re an absolute curse, you know that?”

And, suddenly, he gets it.

Oh, so that was why all those cardiologists he visited laughed at him for about a year straight.

He gets it.

Chuckling bitterly, of course. Of course, he has to understand now. Of course, he loses every shred of sun just as soon as he closes his hands- because for what reason should a weapon crave normalcy? Crave sealed fate? For what right should he demand that you stay here to bind you to him?

His mouth quivers, head turning so that you won’t see the wet glitter of his eyes in the dying daybreak. “So now I’m a special grade and a curse? Does that make me the special grade curse you want to marry?”

Your flip phone buzzes, and he already knows it’s time. Standing up, “You had the curse part down pat even before you were a special grade. Probably why your bride’s running off, Satoru.”

It was the fifth and last time that Gojo Satoru would be declaring that stupid sentiment. Smile only half-true. It was a cruel summer.

But he always was good at waiting.

Gojo tugs on that cold second button of his uniform, calling out in place of a goodbye. “Good thing we won’t be getting married, sweetheart~”

Itadori Yuji has spied on his teacher’s phone before.

He didn’t mean to–he swears it! And was it even that much of an invasion of privacy if he simply glanced over at the glaring lockscreen wallpaper? Surely, it wouldn’t have been as bad as if he had peered over Gojo’s shoulder when he actually unlocked his phone…

…Okay maybe he had seen a snapshot of the older man’s home screen as well, but like he said- it was an accident. Flickering his curious eyes over as he opened up his catalogue of movies during their training together.

But what wasn’t an accident was just how vividly he remembered each wallpaper.

On his lockscreen; taken from the inside of what looked like one of Tokyo Jujutsu High’s dorms, with a massive pile of toppling buttons in the center and a much younger Gojo Satoru (and someone who looked faintly like Kenjaku?) kneeled on the floor. Clearly being punished.

Yet, what was most interesting was the scowling, arms-crossed figure of another student he was staring up at. Unable to tear his eyes away, even through his shades.

It was you.

That familiar face also featured in Gojo’s home screen - a more blurry photo, this time, as if it was still in motion. Of his teacher in the process of scrambling onto a shiny red moped, keys turning, with you stowed away in the backseat - yelling and sat backwards.

And Itadori tried not to think much of it, but he saw you in the small framed photograph that Principal Yaga pretended not to have on his desk, yet, polished every day.

He saw you in the postcards that Professor Shoko pinned up on the packed bulletin board of her infirmary, amongst diagrams of dissections and slaughter. He saw you in the brief, blurry facetime that the other teacher, Utahime, from Kyoto was on during parts of the exchange event.

And he saw you at the foot of Gojo Satoru’s bed, after he’d won.

Older, more mature now - but inevitably you.

Itadori could tell, even in the forlorn way you were slumped over the side of the mattress in Shoko’s clinic, body half-seated on a chair like you’d been there all night.

“You…” He’s breathing, making you stir against his will.

You blinky your teary eyes up in groggy confusion, fingers instinctively tightening on the large, callused fingerpads of Gojo’s digits. “Huh? Oh, you must be Yuji. And Megumi, and Nobara.”

Itadori was just about to open his mouth and answer that no, he was actually just Yuji- when a disgruntled voice behind him makes him realize he isn’t alone. “We apologize for the trouble, we can come back later if you-”

“Oh, no no.” You wave Fushiguro’s words off as the three enter - well, as Fushiguro enters and Kugisaki shoves Itadori inside. “I’m sure he’d want everyone here when he wakes.”

Gojo had won in Shinjuku, but Satoru was still sleeping.

Famed eyes closed. Bundled in the arms of bandages and reverse cursed energy ‘round his toned middle, he was breathing in slow unison with the beep! of the nearby heart monitor. Alive.

You really did have Shoko to thank later.

And Itadori knew that as a student he should be more invested in how his unconscious teacher was doing, but he just couldn’t help but keep sneaking glances over and over. Wondering just who you really were-

“So, is the wedding going to be anytime soon?”

Fushiguro speaks, and the rest of the trio gapes. How dare he ask something like that from a sorcerer so lovely. And wait- why were you chuckling? “Oh right-” Nodding down at Gojo’s large form, of course, he told his honorary son everything. “I am his fiancée.”

“His what-”

“How much did he pay you-”

“Kugisaki, don’t be rude-”

Fushiguro nods, “No, she’s right.”

“Unfortunately, only this.” You’re scrunching your nose as you answer Kugisaki’s question- pulling out a tiny chain from underneath your uniform with an aged, faded pink plastic ring pop.

And she responds like she’d been personally wronged, dragging her hands carefully down her eye-patched face. “Ohhh- I knew it- not only is he a deadbeat teacher, he’s a deadbeat husband, too.”

“To be fair I did leave him. Of sorts.” You wave a hand airily, already having heard from Ijichi about the fate of the higher-ups. The clans. Over the younger girl’s ‘understandable!’ “I just landed in Tokyo today, I wish I could’ve come sooner but- ah, well.”

“B-but…” Everyone looks at Itadori as he stammers out, cheeks burning a slight rouge once your hand drifts over Gojo’s exposed core. Whispering in one breath, “How did he get a wife so pretty…”

“Hey- that’s my wife you’re talking about.”

You could recognize that smug, simpering tone anywhere. You’d be able to pick it out from a crowd of thousands.

Laughing- as he’s tackled into a hug by an overeager Itadori, and the falsely reluctant rest.

It was quite strange to see Gojo Satoru like this - not just laid barren and sprawled over some hospital bed, but without any of his usual blindfolds and sunglasses. Just like when you’d met. And he always was so honest with his eyes.

And he was back.

And you were back - after ten years.

Which is why Itadori and Kugisaki have to fight the urge to look away at the expression settling over Gojo’s serene face. Wondering how you - his fiancée, of all things - would react. Winning against the King of Curses was quite the accomplishment, even for the strongest.

Would you cry? Would you throw your hands over him as they just did? Should they actually get up and leave the room-

“You- you complete idiot.” Gojo half-wonders whether your strength could rival Sukuna himself once you strike down a punch to his scarred shoulder. Yelling, glaring- crushing him into a hug.

Your voice is suspiciously thick once you’re gurgling out into the pale crook of his neck, “I thought you said you’d rather die than marry me.”

And they don’t know what they’re more surprised about- the way that Gojo had the audacity to say those words to you, or the way that Gojo had the audacity to listen to those very words and laugh. Head thrown back, “Sweetheart, I’d come back from death just to marry you.”

Pulling away, you take the longest look at your betrothed that you think you ever have.

Everything from his longer, still-snowy hair, tickling the tips of sparkling sapphire eyes. Slightly slicked back to reveal shyly red-dusted ears, and a cute lil’ dimple at the edge of his boyish grin.

He was still the same Gojo you’d left behind - even though he was taller, stronger. So much bigger that you could feel the flex of his deltoids underneath your palms, and the ripple of his beefy forearms looped around your waist.

He was still Gojo. Always beautiful.

SLAM!

“O-oh.” You’re jolting at the sudden closing of the clinic door, clearly his students had left the two of you to some privacy, and you’re almost embarrassed. “We’re an awful example.”

“When have we ever been a good example?”

“Well, I could say that about you-”

He only tugs you closer, breathing out as if the first breath he’d taken in a while since Shinjuku. Since you’d been gone. “I missed my wife.” And the two of you knew you should alert Shoko by now, but you only stay still- with you nearly in his bed by now.

For what felt like hours. Years.

“Yeah? Well, I- I missed you, too. I thought I lost you.” You wince, “I’m sorry for departing so suddenly.”

It was sincere - but the feeling of Gojo’s smirk pressing up against the side of your thumping pulse almost makes you reconsider it. “I know how you can make it up to me, wifey~”

Scoffing, he was really ramming up the ‘marriage’ part of your relationship by now. “Nothing with buttons or mopeds or-”

“No no-” Lurching back slightly, the plush, puckered fringes of his lips lean in oh-so-closely. Until you could practically taste the saccharine sugar of his heated breath, “You know, I never got to kiss the bride.”

Oh.

Then he’s kissing you- and you’re kissing him. And it’s all that you’ve ever wanted with the sharp, pointed ends of Gojo’s canines digging into your bottom lip to drag you back.

Drinking you in like a man parched- he’s finding life in your mouth. Slipping his tongue in past the spit-glossed crevice of your mouth and uttering a hot pant. “Please-” Manhandling you with his strong, scarred arms up to straddle him on the rickety mattress. “Please.”

And you’ve never heard the strongest beg like this.

Never heard him flutter his droopy lashes and look at you through starved, feral eyes. A translucent bubble of spittle sparkling by the end of his swollen lips, “P-please.”

Never heard him stutter.

Clearly he’s reading something in your sultry eyes because Gojo’s hastily shuffling the two of you down the bedsprings. Head hitting the puff of his pillows, your ass hitting his sharp pelvis.

Your fiancé holds you upright and rubs a clawing hand doooown the back of your spine, toying with the metallic zipper on your sorcerer’s uniform skirt. “Fuck that about hah- not marrying you.” He’s crooning out in a throaty tone, strands of white nearly covering his greedy gaze. “M’ready to consummate our marriage right here, right now.”

“B-but Satoru- you just woke up-”

“So?” There’s something deep n’ dark in his tone that made shivers skitter up your spine. Attempting to clench your thighs together but all it does is make your outer pussy push against the smooth path of his white happy trail. “Your husband’s the strongest, sweetheart.”

And then you’re being roughened up- then your skirt’s bearing the brunt of being almost torn clean off your hips.

Gojo barely even registered his power, not giving two shits if it meant that he got to admire your pale blue panties up close and personal. A firm hand groping your right cheeks help push your clothed pussy up until your slit strikes the edge of his chin, thighs now straddling his pretty, pretty face.

Rosy lips purring over that darkening wet splotch between your legs, “Bon appétit.”

“Shut up and just- oh, fuck!”

He’s flopping the pinkish crown of his tongue out just enough to dab a lil’ dewdrop of spit between your swollen pussylips. And it’s just all that it takes for the first taste of your saccharine pussy to coat his tastebuds-

“O-oh!” He gasps, his hazed peripherals widen. You’re faintly registering the way that the shiny overhead lights of the private room flicker-

Gojo grins as you gape, “Did you just…”

“Guess m’not in control anymore.” He’s snickering, stuffing himself nose-deep into your cunt. And there’s such a primal hunger in him, the way he’s not even caring for your poor, sodden panties before he’s hanging his jaw open and slide-slide-sliiiiding the edge of his mushy tongue up n’ down your folds. “Heh-” A light goes out somewhere down the corridor. “Whoops.

He’s whacking his jawline on the soft inner parts of your thighs and it still isn’t close enough. Tilting his head just so to slip his damp muscle between your ruined fabric.

“Shit- shit, your tongue is sooo big.” You find yourself keening, hips rocking back and forth at a mindless pace. And, truly, you now knew why Gojo talked so much because his tongue was so-very-lengthy, already circlin’ your sticky hole, “Like you better- hck! better like this.”

And the way he looks at you gets you even more drenched, haplessly watching as Gojo opens his throat wide enough to let the cloying droplets of your slick fall down to his maw.

“Oh yeaaaah–?” Gurgling already with the beads of sap that soak the lower half of his face, he’s starin’ you right into your fluttering eyes once he’s tugging your panties to snap! back on your heated core with an index. “Whaddaya gonna do about it?”

Before you can answer - before you can even think, the very tippy-top dome of his fingertip coils slimily down your naked slit. He feels you - so soft n’ warm - for the first time and pants. “Gonna ngh- argue with me from here to make up for it? Hmmm—?”

Almost as if on cue, your pert pussy is letting out the rawest lewd squeeelch at his touch. Bucking wildly, “Are you all talk or what ngh-”

“Looks like you’re all talk.” And you seriously were so wet that it was dripping down Gojo’s handsome chin, rovering a few more solid inches of his index to keep pryin’ your cunt apart with a wet plap!

Then a second inch- and a second finger.

His probing fingers are so big that the gummy channels of your walls have to mold to each size and measurement just to take him. “Look at ya- taking me in sooo well but ya don’t even- sit-” One of his hands claws on your left ass cheek to hold you down where you were hovering your weight, the other sinking in—

You’re squealing at the press of his thick, knobbled middle finger curving against one of your most tender spots. “What if I suffocate-”

“Then suffocate me.”

“You just came back to life.”

“I came back to life just to ngh- see this pretty pussy.” Gojo snarls up at you, tugging you down. Pulling you. Manhandling you. He just wanted to French kiss your pussy until he had that smart mouth of yours stupid. And those silly lil’ panties were a barrier-

Within seconds, he has shreds of your underwear tattered and ripped between his pearly whites.

Looking like a fucking animal once he’s finally sitting you down properly and stuffing himself so deep that you nearly see his pale, straight nosebridge disappear between your folds.

Snaking his tongue to stuff and stuff where two of his fingers were pumping in n’ out in n’ out in n’ out. You were being dually stuffed open, the sting of him stretchin’ you out and swiping the gooey bottom of your core just delicious.

“Don’t mind- haaaa-” Breaths ragged, movements sloppy. Gojo wastes no time in pursuing his delicate lips and spitting, “-dying now that I got ta see her. Now that I got to- hck- taste.”

Hand shaking where he slides it along your thigh, breaths stuttered.

He’s feeling your slick waterfall down with every lap and slash of his tongue, bearing no mercy. Your thighs rendered all jittery and sleek with a sheen of syrup every time he flicked the tip of his tastebuds on top of your clit.

“I’ve been so fucking thirsty- sooooo fucking thirsty.” Gojo whines, and you swear his baritone voice cracks. Hitches. Hips rutting up into the empty air, “You know how long I’ve wanted this- do you have any. Fucking. Idea?”

He sounds genuinely ruined, spitting back into your treacly pussy just to follow the wad dooown the seam of your pussy with his tongue.

A third finger puckers ‘round the edge of your entrance, and you’re whining once Gojo lazily slugs the first pad inside and scrapes the roof of your cunt. “Please- since when- ngh- s-since…”

Giggling, higher-pitched than usual. “Oh, sweetheart- you don’t even wanna know.” You’re whimpering when he’s swatting down the velvety edge of his tongue on your sensitive nub three times before pulling away. Smack-smack-smack. “Spit in my mouth n’ I’ll tell you, h-heh.”

Breathless, “What did you just ask—?”

“Scared?”

And Gojo’s pale brows raise when you’re hunching forwards just enough to grab his clammy cheeks, streaming out a glittery streak of spittle straight into his ajar mouth. “Not if it gets you t-to- shut up-”

You spit in his mouth, and from the slightly-angled turn of your head you catch the way that his throbbing erection twitches.

His fingers thwack so hard your very bones rattle, and Gojo drools the knot of slick straight back through your hole. Letting the jointed bumps of his digits stretch rub your pussy all red and raw from the inside.

“That’s it that’s it.” He’s goading you on, scouring the searchlights of his digits inside of you for that one fragile target. And you’re feeling him poke his fingertips into the nooks n’ crannies near your g-spot, making you see stars. “I’ve wanted you to shut me up- use my ngh- face since I fucking knew what it was. Heh- if you’re not scared-”

“As if I’d be scared-”

“Prove it. Ride me.”

“I am-”

“Not enough.” Within just a single blink of your glassy eyes, Gojo’s raising his non-dominant hand up with enough cursed energy that the neglected ol’ blindfold strewn on the edge of his bed flies into his grasp.

Twisting his thick fingers over the silken fabric, circling it over your neck and immediately hauling you further down- “Ride me. Ride the st-strongest like you own it- h-haaaah- I’m your husband, aren’t I?”

With every word, with every second he’s thrashing four exact strikes of his fingertips scraping your poor g-spot. Slurring out a damp sluuurp every time your sheeny pussylips are gobbling him up.

“Yes- hck! yes.”

Grumbling, sleazy grin just glued to the knobbly tip of your clit. “Yeah- yeah, then use me like I am.”

Kissing right back every time he’s surging his head up and mazing the flexible ends of his tongue muckily. It’s so wet n’ long that you’re damn near feeling the scrape of his tastebuds by your favorite spot, sloppily—“D-don’t think m’gonna last, Satoru.”

Gojo audibly, pornographically moans as you start carnally hastening your tempo.

Cumming on his face- fuck, this was the wettest of his dreams all those long, lonely nights. In response he only latches his strawberry-pink lips against your cunt further, feeling every hot gush flood his throat.

And you were so close that Gojo was drooling- pupils stirrin’ around the whites of your eyes with every circle of his thick tongue, throat cracking with whines every time he’s slushily spearing your pussy with his fingers. Over n’ over.

Rovering alllll around to prick your tenderest areas with- fuck, now four of his fingers.

Your husband spikes the edge of your g-spot, hard. Pulling you down with the corner of his blindfold just to dig his finger in deeper, “W-wanna cummm— ngh- please.”

“Call me husband.” He cockily smiles over the rim of your cunt where he was devouring you like a feast. “Call me- nghh- husband and I’ll let you cum.”

“Please-” Grabbing a fistful of his hair to shove him deeper and hopefully quieten his teasing. “-h-husband.”

Gojo groans like he’s the one cumming, “Ohhhh- again. Louder.”

“Husband-”

“Again.”

“Husband– Toru–!” Pouting stubbornly, “Unless you fucking can’t- oh, fuck.”

Both you and the protesting bedsprings sing out in embarrassing synchronization once he’s shoving you into your high with a soft, sudden zap–! of one jujutsu-coated fingerpad across your g-spot. “Cumming- nghhh- m’cumming m’cumming–!”

And it feels so good you lose your vision to pure white, it feels so good that you can only throw your head back and ride him through each one of your peaks.

Milking the highs of your orgasm in repeated, filthy drags of your hips that knock the top of your glazed slit against his buttony nose. Whack!

“O-ohhh—” Gojo throws his head back at the sheer, sensual motion. It just feels so good having you slickly rovering your pussy over his gaping maw, chasing the heat of his tongue slithering across your clit. Your sweet insides squeeze around his long fingers that Gojo thinks he could just cum right then n’ there.

And he almost does.

Almost- with almost inhuman reflex, he’s sneaking his free hand underneath the covers to plug up his leaking, red-hot orifice. Drivelling out a few creamy cobwebs of pre before he can plop his thumb over it. Close one.

You ogle with a parted mouth as he grits his teeth hard enough that the plane of his neck throbs with a few veins, “Fuh-fuuuck–!”

And if you didn’t know any better, you’d have claimed that sounded like a whine.

A whimper.

But before you can call Gojo out on it, he’s sitting nearly ramrod straight against the cool metallic headboard. Starchy blankets - all drenched and coated at the hem with your trickling sap - all but thrown to the bottom of the bed.

“Don’t worry- hah-” Suddenly, you feel something hot and moist gliiiiide between your puffy core. And it was so thickly curvy that your folds are being smeared apart as much as possible, “Made sure to save the big one for when m’inside, sweetheart.”

Mewling, “Big one?” Pathetically swaying your mouth open the moment he starts suckling on your tongue like some cute candy, “You sure about that?”

“See for yourself, my wife.”

You don’t know what to gape at more.

What Gojo Satoru looks right now - eyes hooded, face flush, ivory tendrils of hair slicked back with sweat, several layers of sickly sweet slick stuck from the tops of his cheeks and gleaming down to his jawline - or the way that his cock looks like right now.

He was completely naked underneath, and you’re mentally counting about nine inches- possible even ten. Ten inches of solid, barreling length scrubbed all red n’ raw with ribbons of precum. Bursting out from the hole at the top of his fat mushroom tip and all the way down to the soft white hairs at his base.

Drenched.

And Gojo gives the left of your ass cheek a good spank when it seems like you won’t be talking any time soon. Too hypnotized. “There there- big, huh?”

You’re huffing, “Y-you wish.”

“No need to liiiie- s’all yours.” Something in him cracks when he bucks up ever-so-slightly to let the shiny bulge of his cocktip scrape down your slit, mixin’ a heady concoction of white pre and slick that makes him salivate. “Look at her- she’s sayin’ she wants more.”

“You’re pussydrunk.” Such loud squelching noises that he jerkily lurches his head closer to listen to, as if his favorite song.

“Hell yeah I am, my wife.” With a raspy chuckle, Gojo slips the circle of his divot just underneath your swollen folds and hisses. “Now- I won. Your husband ngh- won today, why don’tcha gimme my reward, sweetheart?”

Oh-so-ready to make him cry on your tongue, you eagerly start snaking your hand downward.

Fist almost enclosed around the bulky cylinder of his hilt before he stops you right there. V-line hitting your pelvis as he fucks up, up, up-

“Nononono- another time. Right now…” Gojo slouches back, liiiicking that candied glaze of your juices off of his right hand. One by one. Before cushioning it underneath his head and watching you through sexy half-lidded eyes. “How do you want me?”

You hum, pretending to tap your chin in thought. “How you’ve wanted ta- ngh- have me, Toru–”

How he’s dreamed of having you.

Of shoving his thick cock between your pussy folds and fucking that smug smile off of your face while you tried to snap back at him. And his body moves before his brain.

Your back hitting the dampened sheets, your shirt and bra puddling onto the floor.

He doesn’t think he can breathe, he doesn’t even think he can think—especially when he sees that pink plastic ring pop as a pendant on your necklace and leans down to kiss it.

Every ounce of blood sprinting down from his hotly melted mind to balloon up his shaft so hard and cherry-red. Gojo’s tip is practically bawling by the time he’s flipping the two of you over and swiping the hard, aching bulge of it down your cunt.

Your thighs on his shoulders, his pelvis against your ass.

Eyes widening—a mating press. A fucking mating press.

Gojo’s barely even done folding you completely in half before he aligns the round, spheroid edge of his cockhead to crown your sloppy hole and rut. Gasping, he shuts his eyes firmly at the warmth. “Wanted this.”

“O-oh fuck–” Coming your jittery fingers through Gojo’s sweat-splattered hair. He’s just so big that just the feeling of his globular tip makes you see white.

“Wanted this wanted this- wanted this.” Gritting his teeth, furiously. He’s hiking his thighs up so that yours are pushed all the way up to hit your tits, bending you with all his powerful strength. “Have no idea how long- I’ve wanted you like this. Always in this position.”

“Why this one?” It was so filthy - even for him.

“What? Your husband’s the ngh- strongest and you expect him not to put you in a mating press the minute he sees you?”

Spanking the slivery slit of your cunt with one hand, Gojo fucking angles his head and grins at the slight puddle of sap that collects on his wrist.

“So soft n’ sweet-” He bends his knobbly thumb in to twist the button of your clit, licking his pink lips lazily at the way your arousal glitters further soaked. And it wasn’t just that- your husband was just so girthy that he’s tuggin’ your entrance apart to fit his heavy shaft inside. “Oh, always wanted this pretty hole begging f’me.”

Just as he speaks, Gojo slips yet another inch inside and makes your oversaturated pussy keen. “B-bold of you to assume- ngh- I’m the one begging.”

“Ohhh- she’s not?”

“She- fuck!”

Before you can even speak, he’s rolling his sculpted hips and slamming your spit-glued mouth shut. Cooing down with fluttering lashes, “What was thaaaat–?”

You feel a damn sob break at the back of your voicebox at the feeling of his rounded slit lodging against the treacly roof of your cunt. So wet that he’s constantly rubbin’ his veins back and forth on your walls, half-ruts. Half-thrusts. Just to fit in. “Fuh-fuck you!”

And then you’re swearing that Gojo grows harder. Bigger.

The corner of his head swelling up to an even thicker circumference that strikes your soggy cervix with a plop!

He’s bottoming out with a breaking tone, “Who’s fucking who now?”

And now that you’d given him an inch, he was taking a mile.

Fucking you into the rickety clinic bed like he was trying to stop your cute, arguing mouth from shrilling out. Every swab of his bulging cock enough to make your tongue flood with cockdrunken spit, he pounds his entire length into you like he hates you.

Slap!

So hard that the skin on his prominent v-lines stains completely red. And Gojo isn’t even feeling the pain, he’s only spanking hard abs into your front again. And again. And again.

Mouth falling into a sagged oh! as Gojo tilts his head down and watches when your geysering cunt swallows him up from the ruby-red tip to the bulk of his base. Heavy balls just peeking out cheekily.

All the way up until his pure white tufts of hair scratchily massage your clit and make you rut. “There- there.” The flat mountains of his palm come creeping down your tummy to press as he sliiides inside. With a smile, “Inside. Fuck- it’s inside. Can feel me all deep inside, s’like you’re hngh- made for me.”

“S’just s-sooo big, though!” You’re whimpering once he rubs over the callous of his thumb right at the bumpy point of his mushroomy head spearheading in.

Gojo grunts, “And what happened to me being small~”

You clench in response- the only thing you can do. And it’s like the entirety of the chamber tenses with something thick coating each atom of the air.

You just had to clench once and his cursed energy was lapping. Out-of-control.

So powerful that it might just be enough to cause alarm-

“Oh.” As if alerted by something invisible, Gojo raises his free arm towards the door. Lengthy lashes coating with a flicker of blue lightning- before, like nothing ever happened, he’s back to rutting and rutting. In long, methodical strikes of his bashing, bulbous head. Probing deeply into every ridge.

Before you can ask what was the matter, there’s the metallic jiggling of the hospital doorknob. Locked - by his power.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

“I-is anything the matter in here?” Someone- you think it might be Ijichi - calls out from the other side. “The cursed levels were just so high that-”

“Listening to the voice of another man when I’m the one fucking you?” Gojo snarls out, two of his battle-hardened fingertips swatting the side of your cheek so that you’ll stop staring at the door.

Not when he was looking at you like that.

And not when he was the one unsticking your left hand from the side of his muscular obliques, gently kissing your ring finger even though he was drilling into you ferally. “Don’t you think of anyone else when- haaah- I’m the one fucking you-” The fangs of his canines bite in to the flesh of your digit, “Not when I’m your husband.”

“Wh-what if he hears—”

The end of your whine is caught up in his mouth, gnawing down on your lower lip and draaagging. “So let him.” He melts his glissading abs down onto your core, making you feel every bump and scar. “Let him- fuck. S’our long overdue honeymoon- and you’re gonna fucking- take- it-”

Mewling, “Fuck- fuck yes. More.”

It’s like those words have him going mad.

Gojo’s slick orifice grovering into the very bottom of your pussy, he tugs back on the blindfold dangling ‘round your neck to arch you further. Letting his zig-zagged veins creep down your g-spot, precisely.

“Yes- fuck. Your husband.” Repeating and repeating every time he hits your sweet splotchy areas. “M’your husband” And then he clings onto your clit, then he twists his wrist and lets the pads of his digits buzzzz–! with cursed energy. “Your husband.”

Almost as if he couldn’t believe it.

He’s departing his breath out in a scalding breeze every time you squeeze. Bodily shoving apart the inner parts of your legs with his large, flexing shoulders.

“Please- please please-” You’re wailing out utterly raw, the top of your throat feeling like it was clogging up after every ba-thump–! of his sweetly leaking cock probin’ every space inside your cunt. Swelling up so big that it was almost hard for you to clench- “Feels so ngh- good–”

“Yeaaaah–? Your husband’s makin’ you feel all good, huh?” The strongest couldn’t even give a shit about the way your screams were reaching a fever pitch.

Faster, sloppier.

Fingers starting to stain with a bright syrupy coating of your slick, he doesn’t even mean to- but he can’t help the way that the air touching his skin crackles with energy. Drawing out hearts on your perked clit like a lil’ bullet vibrator.

“Go on- say it.” He outlines a very obvious ‘S’ on top of your rugged nub that makes you quiver like a leaf underneath him. And then an ‘A’, a ‘T’, ‘O-R-U.’ Coaxing out your tiny whimpers, “Say my name—”

“Toru- hck! Satoru.”

He twitches, syllables taking on a shaky manner. “O-oh right, that’s my name.” Chuckling, fuck- did he forget his damn name? Just that drunk on your pussy that he’d rather just be called your husband forever and ever. His flushed face pushes forwards to bite on that blindfold and pull you back down, “Call me your heh- husband again.”

Just uttering those words makes him jolt his mushroomy, flared tip inside you until the ridge hits the door to your womb. His balls on your ass. Bruising.

You almost felt shy as he hastily brings down one of your hands to caress his rippling core. From each washboard ab to scar, sensually. “H-husband. My husband.”

Shit- he needed to make you cum now or he was going to, already feeling a steaming drop of pearly liquid empty out from his balls.

“There- there we- go-” And by now Gojo’s fucking you so hard that he’s starting to scrunch his partially-closed eyelids with the weight of big, sparkly tears of sensitivity. “Whatever my wife wants.” The crowned tip of his shaft red and swollen enough to burst, pushing and pushing. “Anything my wife wants.”

“I’m close-” You’re sobbing, reeling him in so close with a grasp of his tensed back muscles. And it was true, his Six Eyes was showin’ him the way your nerves were sizzling, the way your mouth flooded with spittle.

He counts underneath his breath. Five. Four.

Lips wobbling oh-so-adorably, “Toru, m’gonna cum. Let me cum.”

“Ohhh— s’that what you want, sweetheart?” He rolls his thumb over your overstimulated clit until you scream a yes. “Cum then.” Three. Spitting on the hills of his crowned fingerpads, Gojo makes sure they’re tight with particles of cursed energy. Two. Before spanking down- “Cum, my wife.” One.

You don’t know who cums first.

But to Gojo Satoru it doesn’t even matter- all he needs is to make sure is that you were creaming all over his ravaged cock, and that he was there to pump all his columns of wadded seed inside.

Room lights shattering, somewhere in the distance sounding with a sonic boom! Gojo fucks himself hoarse on your pussy until the expanse of his skin was littered with pure power and lightning.

“O-oh my god s’too mmm–” Your mouth dribbles with sap, gooey walls of your cunt sticking to the sides of his veiny shaft. Every tiny drag of his winding lines makes your high explode- “There’s so- hah- so much of it-”

So much that it was overspilling.

And Gojo can only glide the planes of his digits down the saccharine white sap that leaked from between your legs. Gluing his fingers to the stray gaps of your hole, and they were buzzing. “No wastin’ now.” He bites down on the plush gum of his bottom lip and still can’t hold back his snickers. “Gotta g-give you the ring- and my second button. Then take you out for a- a ride-”

He could almost laugh at the dazed confusion on your face, arching up his spine just so that his cock pummeled into you deep and stayed there.

“A ride and then a real ride. On a moped.” Giggling at his own joke, “Take you to eeeevery sweet convenience store in Tokyo you ngh- missed out on. Tell each one m’your husband and we’re having a summer wedding.” Kissing you softly, “M’thinking theme colours blue.”

That in and of itself is enough to make his drivelling orifice stream out yet another jetstream of cum, wadding up the entrance to your womb with clingy sap.

He finishes off with another lecherous slurp that makes you feel so hot inside that it was almost feverish. “A-and then what? S’this all for you big- ngh- honeymoon idea?”

“And if it is?”

“Should’ve left you at the altar-”

Gojo’s red, raw cock jolts. “Ohhhh- just for that m’gonna fuck you in every hah- convenience store, too. Maybe they’ll hear- doesn’t matter.” Grinning, he hikes up a thigh until he is gyrating just enough to swirl his pummeling length in circles. The plump curve of his balls digging into your ass, eyes glowing with blue in the darkness. “Your husband’s the strongest.”

You don’t know if you can do anything but scoff through your embarrassment, “A-and real humble, huh?”

“Well…” He tilts his head with a dopey smile, “Did I tell you that was my first time? Been savin’ myself for heh- marriage, my sweetheart.”

Fuck.

“I love you. Isn’t that the worst thing you’ve ever heard?”

Oh- “I love you, too.”

And something in you told you that this was far from over.

Maybe it was the way that Gojo’s cock strikes the back of your cunt with a splosh of sap, slimily mazing through until it feels like he streams out a squirt of something. You’d just made him squirt- or maybe it was the way that he kisses your plastic engagement ring.

Gaze delirious. Ears red. Fucked-out.

“So…what was that they said about a Gojo heir, my wife?”

“The electricity has been suspiciously unstable today.” Shoko wrinkles her nose up at her completely shattered office lightbulb. The sixth today.

Urgently flicking through her notes before she made a break for her most important patient as of late - the strongest.

Or, as she knew him, that damn Gojo with a penchant for tantrums and harboring a hopeless love for his betrothed. Often both at the same time. Speaking of said betrothed, she’d already shared a hasty greeting with you once you’d first arrived here- before you practically ran to the idiot’s room, that is.

Two peas in a pod.

“We have been getting strange him-level readings on cursed energy levels in this area since a few hours ago.” Utahime grumbles, barely out of the hospital herself but already steady at work as one of the new higher-ups.

“That so? Strange.”

“Yeah, and when I asked Ijichi about it he only looked pale and ran like he saw a-”

The two gasp. In unison.

“He finally proposed.”

A/N. Wrote this with a fever (Gojo was just that hot aha).

Plagiarism not authorized.

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gojocenteredblog · 3 months ago

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plot: richboy!gojo takes his cute girlfriend golfing

content warning: exhibitionism, very nasty, pervy rich boy gojo mix, gojo is the biggest horndog ever, girly girl reader, established relationship, cunniilingus, fingering, missionary, public asf, they get caught, tad second hand embarrassment, cowgirl, dirty talking, breeding, implied blowjob, very nasty

peachy's yap: idk how i came upon this idea but it makes me wiggle my toes. posting to distract y'all from the fact the thukuna fic is gonna take me a while

you weren't exactly sure how you ended up getting your guts rearranged on your boyfriend's golf cart. you do remember being in his bed as his head laid on your stomach. while your fingers lazily ran through his white fluffy hair.

the two of you had been insanely bored for the last three days. you were both back home from college, and your parents had the audacity to go on a trip together, leaving the two of you alone in satoru's gigantic mansion for a whole week.

you weren't overly excited to see each other either, you went to the same school for fucks sake. this summer was a bust, suguru was in italy, shoko was with her girlfriend's family, and you two were... there.

"toruuu," you whined lightly pulling at his hair to get his attention. he groggily lifted his head to look up at you. forcing his eyes open after your fingers lulled him to sleep.

"yeah, baby?" he asked, chin resting on your stomach as he tried to keep his eyes open. he was failing terribly by the way. you had finally come up with an idea, knowing gojo would be all for it.

"remember how you said you wanted to take me golfing?" you asked, and gojo jumped up as if he had never been asleep. he quickly walked off to his closet, grabbing what you assumed was the golfing outfit he bought for you, probably well over a year ago. just as you suspected, he walked out with a pleated skirt and cropped polo.

"i've been waiting for this day for a year now," he laughed to himself, throwing the clothes at you. "i'm about to go get dressed." he giggled, running off to the closet. an hour later, the two of you were on his golf cart off to the private golf course in his very own backyard.

"i can't believe you made me wear this short ass skirt." you huffed arms crossed and gojo had the nerve to just laugh. the skirt was so old you didn’t even fit into it anymore. your ass peaked out but gojo reminded you that the course was private.

"i didn't make you do anything, i just gave you a sense of security." he nodded to himself as if that was the smartest thing he had ever said. you shook your head at his statement, not even bothering to argue with your strong-headed boyfriend.

when gojo had finally taken you to where you would play, he got off the cart. you watched his every move not understanding a damn thing he was telling you. all you did was admire how mouth watering sexy he looked in his richie rich get up. a black short sleeve polo that unironically matched yours, and beige slacks.

this fit was almost more attractive than his workout compression shirt. the way his arms bulged under the cotton mesh as he slipped on his gloves, or how his big muscular thighs were visible through his pants, and the veins in his arms were protruding due to him pulling the gloves on.

"get up, girl, you ain't think you were going to sit there the whole time, did you?" he asked, reaching his hand out for you. you grabbed his hand, stepping down off the golf cart, following shyly behind him. he handed you the club, standing behind you. "hold it here," he instructed.

he was hard and he shamlessly pressed it against your barely clothed ass. you didn't acknowledge it, knowing that it was best to breeze past it. so you let gojo show you where your hands were supposed to be, and you listened. he even helps you get a little power in your swing, the ball flying a solid 10 feet in front of you.

"i did it!" you giggled, turning to look at gojo who blinked in disbelief. and when he saw the seriousness on your face it took everything in him to hold back a laugh. "what? if i didn't do good, show me how it's done."

"alright," he said, grabbing the club from you, walking the short 10 feet to grab the ball. you stood back watching his big swing and the ball fly across the course. your jaw was practically on the floor in shock that he was so good at it. "that's how it's done."

"no fair toru... you're good at like everything," you whined, and gojo scoffed.

"don't do that, y/n, it takes practice." he pecked your lips, helping you get in the cart so you could go to the ball that was all the way in timbuktu. on the ride there, gojo had the bright idea to play strip golf.

the rules were simple, however, many tries it took for you to get it in the hole, was as many pieces of clothing you had to remove. you weren't confident in your abilities, but you were determined. how hard could it be? every other challenge you did with gojo you won.

well... except this one.

it took gojo all of 4 tries to get the ball in, and it took you 27. which resulted in gojo shaving it down to 6 since you didn't have 27 pieces of clothing. so all gojo had to take off were his socks, pants, and shirt. for you, that was your socks, shirt, skirt, bra, and panties.

"toru i'm butt ass naked," you said as gojo basically got a strip show from you. his eyes never left your body for a second. drooling over you like a virgin who had never laid eyes on a woman's bare body.

"and fine as fuck." was all he said grabbing you by your waist so that you were standing between his legs. he kissed along your neck moving his kisses to your lips. the kiss was heated and urgent, gojo was needy and wasn't afraid to admit. "i need you, so bad."

"wait... baby? right here?" you asked, and he nodded, not questioning it or hesitating. he didn't say much, he just picked you up and placed you down on the backseat of the cart. pushing your legs to your chest, giving you a knowing look, but you didn't obey. "t...toru, hold on a second." you said breathlessly making him deadpan.

"hold em," he said, and you sighed, grabbing the back of your legs, holding them up and open. gojo dropped to his knees, not even caring about his knees digging in the mud. his focus was on sending one teasing swipe of his tongue up your slick folds.

he hummed at the taste of your essence on his tongue. he was so sure he could use your slick as honey for his desert. so sweet he needed a glass of milk to wash it dow-

"toru!" you yelled at him for the third time, knocking him out of his trance. once he came back to reality, he dove into his lunch. his tongue lapped at your juices and teased your poor delicate clit.

sucking and spitting and licking and slurping, it was a mess. he even began to finger your tight cunt with not one not two but three fingers. digging his unnaturally long digits to the deepest parts of your pussy being sure to stimulate that spongey spot inside of you.

moans were spewing out your mouth as your hands ran through his damp hair. pulling at the white locks, your eyes to the back of your head as you delve in the pleasure. you were quickly coming upon your climax, and gojo knew it too. and not because you were violently squeezing down on his fingers. no. but because you were chanting it out as gojo finger fucked you with no mercy.

"cumming i'm... m'cumming toru fuck fuck fuck so close." you babbled and he smirked pulling of you puffy clit with a 'pop!' this was his entertainment watching you squirm as you creamed all over his fingers.

"cream on my fingers so i can clean it up for you," he tells you and you do just that as you cum violently. your eyesight is blurry as you see gojo looking down at you with a shit eating grin. he doesn't say anything as he slips out his fingers licking them clean just as he said he would. "so fuckin' perfect," he mumbled pulling your hips closer to him.

he pulled his boxers down, stepping out of them. his angry red cock slapped his navel leaving a string of sticky precum behind. his hand gripped the base of his cock slapping it against your clit. he chuckled watching your body react to him. he wasted no time using his thumb to push his cock head in line with your entrance.

"fuck." he grumbled from the feeling of your tight entrance trapping his tip. he fought the urge to cum right then and there. he pushed himself the rest of the way into you, bottoming out with nothing on his mind except you.

"s...shit toru you're too deep," you whined and he grunted pulling halfway out and slamming back into you. all the wind was knocked out of you as you gasped for air. followed by a moan that could probably be heard back at the mansion.

"so wet, squeezing down on me so tight," he hummed enjoying the feeling. after waiting for you to finally be ready, his hips snapped into yours. his pace was feral and needy as moans and groans flew from his mouth. his lips crashed onto yours, kissing you sloppily, spit spilling out of your mouths. rolling down your cheek and onto the bare skin of your chest.

that was one of the many things you loved about gojo, he was not afraid to moan. which only encouraged you to moan and whimper louder. it wasn't like you had to try very hard with the way he dug in your guts. so here you were, finally remembering how you got in this position. strip golf, never ever again, you thought to yourself.

while gojo was relentlessy fucking into you, his hips stilled. you were about to protest until he held his finger up to his lips. you quickly closed your mouth as well, hearing someone talking.

"today was supposed to be my day off, but mr. gojo asked me to tend the garden today." the person who you figure was the gardener said. gojo leaned down, covering your body with his.

"same, he asked me to clean the pool." the pool cleaner added. there was a line of trees next to the two of you, and it sounded as if they were behind them.

"my ass is out." gojo whispered in your ear with a light chuckled. you swatted his arm, light telling him to hush, but that only got him started. the motions were small, but you felt the way his hips ground into yours. the way his pelvis stimulated your clit and his dick pulsed in you.

"i guess we better get back to the mansion," another worker said, and you whimpered from the feeling. it didn't seem like they were really planning on going back. but eventually the footsteps got further away and you both loosened up. he quickly picked you up and sat on he seat instead.

"ride me... please?" he practically begged, looking up in your eyes. his bright blue eyes burning a hole into your face above his shades. you nodded shyly, always getting bashful when it was your time to be on top.

you wasted no time riding him slowly, teasing him with your deathly slow pace. his large hands gripped the fatty flesh of your ass holding on for dear life. his head was thrown back, jaw clenched as you squeezed down.

"you're driving me crazy," he grumbled lifting you and fucking up into you like crazy. your hands grabbed his forearm, begging him to slow down. "you gonna stop teasing me now?"

"m'sorry i'll stop i will," you whine and he eased up letting you take control. with your feet planted on the side of him, you began to ride him this time faster. the disgustingly loud 'plap, plap, plap' of your skin slapping was turning you both on. pushing you closer and closer to finishing.

you grabbed his face, forcing him to look at you. the way he licked his lips and bit his lower one to muffle his groans. it just made you desperate to press your lips and steal a kiss from him. but gojo was two steps ahead of you, noticing the way your sight was trained on his lips.

he leaned up, forcing his tongue down your throat. the two of you kissing sloppily swapping spit as your bodies were conjoined. one of his hands left your ass to reach between the two of you. using two fingers to rub your clit sending your body immediately into overdrive.

"close," you mumbled against his lips to which he simply mumbled 'mhm' against your lips. it didn't take much his pulling away from your lips to whisper a gruff 'cum'. even if he hadn't said that you were bound to cum right there and then. "fuckkk...!" you yelled your cream coating his cock and collecting around the base.

"m'right behind you baby shit i'm cumming." he groaned loudly as he shot his warm loud inside you. filling you up completely, not even bothering to pull out. he thrusted up into you a few more times being sure to stuff him cum all the way into your womb.

"you were right toru... the thrill of getting caught makes you cum harder." you huffed and gojo nodded.

"i told you years ago." gojo smirked, kissing your forehead, leaning back as you climbed off his lap. "you'll clean me off, won't you?" he asked, giving you those sickeningly effective puppy eyes. you didn't verbally comply, but he knew when you got on your knees, assuming the position. just like gojo earlier, not caring if mud would get on your knees.

"are we sick?" the poolboy asked the gardener who shook her head his fingers stuffed in her mouth. "fucking to our boss's son and his girlfriends moans."

sidenote:

gojo’s hair was damp from thinking he was in high school musical 2, playing with the water and sprinklers, trying to make you laugh.

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gojocenteredblog · 3 months ago

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classmate!gojo part 3!

classmate!gojo who has been watching you from afar for the past week now. His eyes are always gravitating towards you in class, trying to catch any other possible connection. He’s try so hard to convince himself that you’re not his mystery girl, but at this point he should just accept it. The photo of your nails was proof enough, not to mention how much of a rush you were in. Neither of you have texted or exchanged photos since then, and he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t driving him crazy. Every single day since then he can’t get you off of his mind, getting so hard from the thought of you that he has to sneak away to rub one out to your pictures or videos. He just can’t help himself.

He watches you in class, in the cafe area, even sees you walking on campus, doing normal things. He would have never guessed in a million years you were the one he sought after so badly. You hide it so well. But he knows deep down under that good girl persona you have, there’s a slut waiting to caught, waiting to be fucked and used like you told him all those times over text. He’ll make you break. He sees you sitting on a bench on campus just scrolling through your phone, knowing this is the perfect time to execute his plan.

He finally breaks contact, sending you a video he took of himself last night.

gojo: i miss you

it was simple, but he was hoping it’d work. He watches intently, a small smile spreading across your face, though he’s unsure if it’s because of him

gojo: send me something, yeah? miss seeing you, baby

and like clock work, he sees you get up, heading towards the bathrooms inside one of the campus buildings. What else to do but follow. He sees you slip into the bathroom, and now he finally has you where he wants you.

you enter the bathroom, riddled with excitement that he finally texted you. Maybe he didn’t catch on that you were the one sending him photos. Good, it means you can have more fun. You enter the stall, replaying the video of him jerking off, putting the phone close to your ear so you can his moans. You smile, your hands finding themselves under your skirt, rubbing your clit through your clothed pussy. Little do you know he’s standing right outside the door, waiting for you.

You unbutton your shirt and grab onto your tits, massaging them in your hand while you send him a video. Quickly, you send him another of your wet panties, still rubbing your clit.

you: missed you too. can you tell?

and gojo can’t believe it when he receives the videos, chuckling to himself at how slutty you can be. He saves the videos nonetheless and puts his phone back in his pocket, the bathroom door opening, you walking out, completely caught off guard. Your heart thumps against your chest, mouth hanging open like you want to say something but nothing is coming out. All you know is that you can’t stop staring at him. He’s smirking at you, eyeing like a piece of candy as he moves closer towards you, leaning over to whisper in your ear, “I know you’re little secret.” You’re frozen, unable to do a thing. You couldn’t even deny it at this point. “Give em to me,” he demands.

“W-what?” You blink, voice barely above a whisper. He moves back, a smug smile on his stupidly pretty face. God, he smells so good. And his whispering? You’re even more wet than before. He knows what he’s doing to you.

“Your cute little panties. Give them to me.” He’s so casual about it and makes you even more nervous yet more intrigued. You turn to go back into the bathroom but he grabs your arm. “No, no, no. Do it right here.”

“But—” you look around to see if anyone else is around.

“What? Scared of getting caught? Sure weren’t thinking about that when you sent me all these videos and pictures. So, hand them over.” He watches as you slightly bend over, reaching under your skirt and gently pulling your panties down, letting them fall to your ankles. You sheepishly pick them up, they’re coated in your slick, an embarrassing sight. He grabs them from you, chuckling at the wet stain. “Wasn’t so hard, right?” He shoves them into his back pocket.You shake your head no, unable to keep eye contact with him. All the confidence you had over text has completely disappeared in the presence of him. What were you even thinking? He’s Gojo Satoru. “Thank you for these, baby.” He steps closer towards you, cornering you against the wall. “Send me something else later on tonight. Oh, and make sure to stop hiding that pretty face of yours too, okay? I wanna see everything.” He grabs your chin, tilting it up so you were looking at him.

“Why don’t you just fuck me already? We’ve both been waiting long enough,” you abruptly ask. It was taking everything in you not to drop on your knees and let him fuck your face.

“I can fuck you right here if I wanted to. You know how’ve riled up you’ve gotten me for all these weeks? I get so hard thinking about you that it hurts. I can’t fucking cum if it doesn’t involve you. You’ve taken over my mind, made me go on this chase to figure out who you were. So, if I wanna make you wait a little more, then I’ll fucking do it.” He gritted his teeth, gripping your chin slightly tighter. “Remember, only good girls get rewarded.” He smirked, pulling away from you before walking out of the building like nothing happened.

previous part

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gojocenteredblog · 3 months ago

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Pornstar Satoru

Pairings- Pornstar Satoru x shy f!reader

Warnings- mentions of sex and sexwork, masturbation, mentions of drug use, weed smoking, Gojo has an OF hehe, lots of longing, pining, Satoru can't get hard if it's not you, whipped ass Satoru

This will be a FULL fic as a thank you for 11k followers (I can't BELIEVE I'm almost there!?!??) I wanted to show a little preview first, so here are some hcs!! Thank you all sm for following meee <3 Comment to get tagged!

Pornstar Satoru is one of the most famous pornstars there are, hence him constantly wearing jet black shades and hoodies at times, he never knew just who he'd run into that would recognize him. Whether it's his flicks or his OF - he's the top .01 % - he gets a lot of notice, especially in bustling LA. But, he loves what he does, he especially loves watching his abs flex in the camera as he hits one of his lovely costars from the back.

Pornstar Satoru loves making the costars and girls he collabs with actually cum, where they're shaking and squirting all over his latex covered cock. Not that fake shit like he watches them do with other men- no Satoru makes sure to slam that curved tip against their cervix, to roll his thumb right on their clit with the perfect amount of pressure. Perhaps that's the secret to how famous he really is, along with his good looks.

Pornstar Satoru makes so much money from each shoot and is in high demand, so he can have whoever he wants as a co star. They line up to have a chance at him, watching his videos and aching for a chance to feel his cock hitting them deeper than damn near anyone could hit, to say they got to shoot with the Satoru Gojo. This just makes Satoru fuck them harder, smiling right at that camera, as women dream it's really them that have captured his pretty blue eyed gaze.

Pornstar Satoru thinks it's a pretty damn good life, being rich for fucking beautiful women on camera, as he's inhaling a blunt after a threesome shoot with his best friend - and often costar- Pornstar Suguru, as they talk about who got the girl to squirt more, right in the middle of a bouguie party in East LA. Suguru let's out a throaty laugh, while Satoru narrows his blue eyes. 'I had her cumming so hard she was shaking' he says, taking a hit and handing it back to Suguru. 'Nah, that was all for me, did you see...'

Pornstar Satoru stops listening when he sees you enter the room, completely out of place at the coke filled, booze filled party, wearing a pair of black glasses that cover half of your pretty face, and a little nervous look as you stand there, in a cute white pleated skirt and a big oversized sweater. Satoru smacks Suguru on the shoulder then and he coughs up smoke. 'Shit what is it?' Satoru looks back at you, when you're handed a drink, some guy flirting as you look down shyly. 'Who's she?' Suguru blinks a bit curiously. 'I don't know, she's pretty though'

Pornstar Satoru scowls at Suguru who snorts in laughter then. 'Satoru we don't have 'girlfriends' and she... looks like a good girl' your eyes catch his then, across the room, like something shifts as you smile sweetly, before peering at your phone, biting your lip in concentration. 'I'm talking to her' Suguru chuckles as he watches his friend, and Satoru feels his heart race when he comes too close to you, something he can't say he's felt, even pleasing countless beauties, nothing has quite altered him as your sweet turn of lips, as you look down at your converse, so out of place you're fucking adorable. 'Hey sweetheart... Satoru Gojo' he says, introducing himself with ease, expecting you to maybe notice him, get starstruck, fuck women get wet just near him, but you simply grin, and your name whispers through his mind when it spills from your lips.

Pornstar Satoru has you sitting with him later, you fall into easy conversation, you're a little gamer nerd, you love science and the environment, he just bets you were head of your ecology club in college, which you quickly confirm, all while you're in awe of just how beautiful this man is. He's sweet, he's sexy... you feel he shouldn't even be talking to you. You're pretty but... he's experienced so clearly, by every way he moves, he's worldly, so confident, and you've never really left this little part of LA, but the two of you can't stop talking, to the point you forget what brought you here.

Pornstar Satoru laughs with you, as you're sitting side by side, and he lights up a blunt, leaning back on the burgundy couch on the outskirts of the party, inhaling it deep into his lungs. 'Want a hit, sweets?' he murmurs, you take it nervously, putting it to your lips and inhaling a bit, before coughing, covering your mouth. Satoru chuckles, 'you're cute' earning your cheeks heating up. 'Can you tell I don't do this?' you're nervously tapping your leg now. 'Yeah, what does bring you here, doesn't seem your...' 'my scene?' he nods then. 'yeah, that.'

Pornstar Satoru watches avidly as you sip on your drink, wincing at the strong liquor. 'Well, my friend invited me over, but she's running late' Satoru grins now. 'Party time is different, everyone comes late, that's on time. About fifteen minutes late' 'oh no I came early!' you smack your own forehead, giggling along with him. 'Are you like... a model, or an actor?' you ask, eyeing him and his baby blues, the cheekbones so perfect, those lips that wrap the blunt again. 'You could say I'm a bit of both,' he muses, then spits out his drink when you ask 'what are you in!?'

Pornstar Satoru coughs just a bit, he's never been ashamed of what he does, but he's nervous for some reason to tell you. Why, he doesn't know. 'I'm... into some indie flicks' you brighten up then. 'Oh, let me know, I love lowkey films! I bet you're great' Satoru sighs, gulping down the rest of his drink and eyeing your cup. 'Want more?' you frown now, maybe you're asking too much, or offending this actor that you don't recognize him!? You nod, the amount of people around you making you press against this friendly, pretty white haired stranger just a little more.

Pornstar Satoru has another drink, eyeing the sea of bodies undulating in the extravagant mansion, and soon the two of you are dancing together you're cute and so awkward, Satoru's enjoying this far, far too much. He has plenty of costars and fans come up to the two of you, but he's too interested in showing you how to move your hips to pay them any mind, when finally your friend comes. Satoru instantly recognizes her, she's a pretty famous co star he's collabed with on her Onlyfans not long ago. When she sees you giggling and enjoying yourself so much, she damn near drags you away, making Satoru curse.

Pornstar Satoru eyes you when your friend whispers in your ear- 'you really don't recognize him!?' you blink curiously, looking at him more closely. 'Should I?' she sighs then, eyeing Satoru up and down. 'He was in my OF videos, we collabed' you heat up furiously then. 'I never watched your videos! I just subbed to be supportive!' she giggles. 'You're so cute, I thought you at least watched some?' you shake your head nervously. 'I don't really watch, is he... like an OnlyFans guy?' Satoru is back over with Suguru now, while you sip your drink, feeling your body warm up. 'He's the top pornstar there is, the collab was like a dream. He's really sweet but you should know is all, you're kinda...' you glare. 'kinda what?' she giggles again. 'you're just... sweet, emotional, is all'

Pornstar Satoru expects you to be done with him once you find out, after all you just seem innocent, uncorrupted for this city, not the kind of girl to be at this party where lines are being snorted off bodies, and people are naked and jumping in the pools, a heady, wild atmosphere. But you smile at him, as you murmur - 'he's sweet?' to your friend. She nods then. 'He is, but just know... he doesn't date so, it'd only be physical' you frown at that now, that's not something you think you can do, you're about as demisexual as it gets, hence your very limited experience. 'He doesn't date at all?' Your friend gently touches your shoulder. 'No, love, I'd hate to see you hurt'

Pornstar Satoru catches you before you leave later that night, when you are just feeling too out of place, his big hand wrapped around your delicate wrist, earning you looking up at him. He can't stop thinking how pretty your eyes would look rolled back, how good your lips would feel wrapped around his cock, as you relax a bit, turning and looking up. 'Headed out already?' he asks softly, you flush as you remember just what he does for a living, your friend had just described his cock in far too vivid detail. 'It's not really my thing, but I'm glad we met, Gojo' you smile so cute then, leaning up and pecking him on the cheek, his arm wraps your waist as he leans down, inhaling that sweet vanilla scent cloying to your skin.

Pornstar Satoru pulls you in closer, blue eyes staring under snowy lashes. 'Can I... get your number?' Satoru has never asked for a number a day in his life, but he delights in watching you shift nervously, nodding as you tuck your hair behind your ear. 'Yeah, I'd like that' he exchanges numbers, tilting your chin up then, watching the way your eyes dilate, the color spread on your pretty cheeks. 'She told you?' you clear your throat, nodding a bit, still being captured by his fingers. 'I don't judge at all, Gojo, I'd still like to be... friends...' your whisper is met with the most subtle kiss on your lips, shooting desire hot and heavy until Satoru releases you, plump lips smirking- 'sure, sweets, we can be friends'

Pornstar Satoru can't get you off his mind, the feel of your skin on his, the sweet sigh against his lips. He is on a big shoot and - the Satoru Gojo that never gets soft - is having trouble keeping it up, to the amusement of his costar Pornstar Sukuna. Satoru scowls at his comments, just picturing your sweet lips against his for that brief moment. A man who just fucks and fucks, and doesn't feel, is hung up just on some fucking kiss. He has to take a break after pleasing his costar with his fingers, she's cumming so much she doesn't notice, but the directors wonder why he's off. He's in his own dressing room, eyeing the phone, hands shaking as he decides to type a message - 'could you give me a picture, sweets, to save as your caller id?'

Pornstar Satoru finds his cock is right back on hard when you send one quickly, just a cute selfie with a little peace sign, but he sees your glossy fucking lips, the teeth indentations he aches to rub the tip of his cock on, along with just a hint of your breasts. Your nipples press against the thin material of your little tee shirt- Pokemon, he notices, smiling- his cock throbbing. 'Can I get one too?' you're biting that lower lip nervously as you ask, getting a picture of him shirtless then, doing nothing to stifle the curiosity in your mind, your heart racing as you seee his body. 'You at a shoot?' you ask in the messages, he hesitates before answering - 'yes' - and somehow you feel jealous of whoever his costar is. You message a - kill it, Gojo! - despite the feeling in your tummy, little do you know you're drowning his fucking mind when he performs later, feeling the star squirting all over his latex covered cock.

Pornstar Satoru can't stop texting you that week, he can't even get hard if he doesn't look at that picture, and you can't stop your curiosity, when you friend mentions he's doing a live stream. Since Satoru can hardly perform, he's decided to masturbate on live cam, in minutes making more than he'd make in a shoot, all while having your picture propped up. People are chatting, watching, dollars by the hundreds being tipped every moment, fuck he's making way more than he usually would, and he can think of you. He laughs softly, abs flexing as he hits the right angle, reading the comments, making you dripping wet, this isn't what you do!?

Pornstar Satoru is stroking his wet, slick cock that's glistening, up and down with his huge hand, and you feel your pussy clench, breath coming faster, unsure whether to look away or keep staring, meanwhile he's picturing you in all sorts of positions, on your knees, a fucking mating press. He's shutting his eyes for a moment, grinning as the viewers go crazy. 'I know, it's pretty, huh?' he spits right on that long, veiny cock of his, pinching his pink tip and whining, white lashes fluttering open right when he sees a familiar name enter the chat.

Your name.

hehe it'll be a FULL FIC not a drabble/oneshot - if you're interested in getting tagged drop a comment <3

perm tags- @alt--er--love @indiewritesxoxo @nanasukii28 @cuntphoric @loafteaw @n1vi @miizuzu @beachaddict48 @honeybunnnnie @re-tired-succubus @gojosukuna2268 @waterfal-ling @1brii @wise-fangirl @moncher-ire @orikixx @uhnosav @baepsays @designerpvssy @orixxxana @airandyeah @nina-from-317 @evelynxxo @naammiii @soyokosuguru @espresso1patronum @tomboy-disaster @iam-souless @lanii-i @cristy-101 @doeeyestoji @cvixmei @mutsu422 @ivyvenus333 @g00seg1rl @suki91 @satoao-main @fairygardenprincesss @theonlyjuggernaut @huntyhuntycunty @lovelockdownff @ibreathesmut @s777athv @twinklywinkly @akiii143 @squeezyvalkyrie @cookielovesbook-akie @oinksa @cutelittlesugarfairy

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gojocenteredblog · 4 months ago

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Gojo who loves simple acts of dominance, in both sexual and non sexual scenarios. Gojo who loves it when you ask him for help when carrying something heavy, he would graciously take it from you, flexing his muscles as you watched him work. Gojo who loved staying fit, part of the reason being he loved your reactions to his body. He would always make sure to strut his stuff around the house in a compression shirt, not missing the way your eyes stayed glued to him, the way you weren’t quite paying attention when he spoke “Gonna answer my question sweets or you gonna keep eye fucking me?” Gojo who would love when instead of holding his hand in public you would wrap your hands around his thick bicep. Gojo who loved being able to pick you up with ease, he loved watching your eyes light up when he would throw you about. Gojo who would wrap the bicep you loved so much around your neck while fucking you, putting you in a headlock while he destroys your pussy. Gojo who would throw you onto the bed with ease, pinning your pretty little wrists above your head “no where to run now angel”. Gojo who knew how much you loved it when he put you in your place, throwing you over his lap and bringing his huge hand down to spank you “shhh, take it for me pretty girl” Gojo who would use his strength to his advantage, pinning your hips when you were too squirmy, making you take every inch of his cock

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gojocenteredblog · 5 months ago

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gojo's arm is around your throat, holding you in place as he plows into you hard, each thrust making your body jerk forward and back into him. you can barely breathe, the pressure of his grip on your neck only adds to the pleasure as he fucks into you, deep and rough. again and again. you're so cock drunk it's diabolical. the way his cock fills you, it's so fucking big that you can't think straight.

"biiiiigg stretch, yeah?" he murmurs in your ear, his voice dark and low, and it makes your spine shudder. he makes sure you feel every inch of him. you grip the bed sheets, your whole body shaking as he lets you take it all. the stars in your vision blur together as he pounds into you, hard and relentless, each thrust so, so deep it feels like it might split you in half. and at this rate he might.

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gojocenteredblog · 5 months ago

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𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭, 𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐭𝐰𝐨

pairing: gojo x fem!reader

part two of the arrangement

summary: life was going well. better than you could have ever imagined. the whirlwind marriage between you and gojo satoru that started as an arrangement blossomed into something sweeter and more tender after you both fell in love. but that storybook life you've been living soon shatters when you're told that a bitter king wants you two to separate so gojo could marry his daughter. either that, or he promises a war to follow. you live between selfishness and sacrifice as the fate of the kingdoms rests in your, and your husband's hands.

warnings: 18+ mdni, angst with no comfort for a while, near-death experiences, gojo sometimes struggling to be reasonable, small panic attack, heavy making out, heavy smut, unprotected sex, loss of virginity, (reader's first time), creampie, (happy ending)

word count: 38k+ (sorry again)

note: act two is finally done! (nearly lost my fingers writing it) art credit: _3aem

jjk masterlist + series masterlist

One year ago you were told about an arrangement. The arrangement.

It offered you a chance of freedom, a lick of life. You didn’t have time to question why the most sought-after bachelor of the six kingdoms was asking for you to be his bride, and only a daft, bumbling idiot would seek out the answer when time was given. Gojo Satoru was the man you soon called husband, but the true act of having an actual husband didn’t come around till months later.

At first, the dinners you spent alone were now spent together. Albeit in silence, but sometimes you’d catch his stare from the other side of the long, mahogany table, and the two of you would quickly look away. On other days you’d walk around the estate only to catch him when he was training with his men, his loud voice booming around the walls as he commanded them. You’d watch them from the balcony, leaning over the railing as you rested your chin in your palm. Sometimes he’d look up and see you, not doing anything to hide his surprised expression, other times he tried puffing his chest out so he’d seem even bigger.

All of the unspoken feelings, lingering touches, and longing glances morphed into the two of you spurring out your thoughts to one another, elated and relieved to find that the other felt the same.

Months would pass and a part of you wondered if perhaps what he felt was only momentary. But those worries quickly seemed to pass the more you surveyed him. Because the most esteemed man, the most worshiped warrior destined to lead his lands to greatness, could not seem to survive apart from you for longer than five minutes.

“Love, we have to go.”

It’s your fifth time telling your husband about the urgency of getting out of bed, and the fifth time he’s tugged your squirming body closer to his bare chest to get you to stay in bed. His arms, which are the size of tree trunks, prove to work more than your pathetic flails, chuckling when you let out a deafening, annoyed whine.

Months ago you never entertained the idea of the two of you sharing a bed, let alone the man you married turning into such a leech. Seeing how you were first sleeping on separate sides of the estate, you always assumed you had ended up in one of those marriages in which the only time you two ever saw each other was during meal time (if that) and at gatherings.

But things took a turn, and after a while, that turn never stopped. And you found yourself here. With no complaints, of course.

The days when the two of you weren’t burdened with the life of being the Lord and Lady of the North, Gojo would whisk you away to wherever you pleased. Sometimes you settled to bake some sweets in the kitchen, other times you requested to go into town and look through the bustling markets. He would always oblige, taking you down to the epicenter of Northern life, watching as you carded your fingers through the fabrics and stocked up on your spices. And though you enjoyed prancing around with your husband attached to your side, most days, these were the moments you loved the most.

Other days you’d find yourself with newly made friends, women you had slowly gotten closer to the more you socialized. It took a while for you to move away from the quietness you had been accustomed to for so long, but you preferred walking around the town or the estate with them, arm in arm as you laughed about something minuscule.

Nights were spent with each other, skin to skin, sharing the warmth. Mornings like this would come and he’d awake before you, pulling you closer to his chest as he nudged his nose against your ears. He’d whisper how much he loved you, how pretty you were when you slept. It proved to be a nice and easy way to wake up, but on the days where you were particularly stubborn and wanted to sleep more, he’d bite your ear, chuckling when you would let out a fake whine. Afterward, you’d grumble about it, like now, but other times you’d laugh softly when you’d turn and see his blushing face.

“People might gossip if they hear you,” your husband muttered against your head, his lips pulled back into a large grin, “They might say I’m torturing you, leaving you unsatisfied.”

Your cheeks heat up at his implications and you wrangle a hand out of his hold to slap at his torso, rolling your eyes as you give up, going slack in his arms as you relax against him. You might’ve put up a tougher fight if this wasn’t a daily occurrence and your overall zest to equal the strongest man ever known was decreasing.

“You’re so lude,” you comment, and he just shrugs in response, knowing that you weren’t lying. If anything, this was him being more than tame. Sometimes he’d corner you in a hallway that had heavy foot traffic and kiss you senseless, his plush lips growing into a sly grin when somebody caught the two of you.

“You make me lude,” Gojo remarks and you sigh, pretending to find him annoying instead of endearing as you look away. In reality, you loved your mornings together. With how busy the two of you got throughout the day, these little blips of being alone together were heavily enjoyed.

You rub at your eyes, yawning a little bit as you stretch your legs out. You find yourself sleeping better than you ever have in this bed, and whether it be the fact that your husband was asleep next to you or that the bed was constructed of goose feathers, you didn’t care much to question it.

“We should go into town today,” Gojo says suddenly, and you turn your neck slightly over to him as you raise a brow. He mirrors your expression as if he isn’t riddled with duties that need to be taken care of.

“A ride into town alone takes an hour,” you argue, bringing his hand closer to yours so that you can fidget with his slender fingers.

“I’m well aware,” he says, “But you were saying last night that you need more cinnamon sticks and that your honeycomb stash is nearly gone.”

You try to hide your smile, try not to let him know how pleased you are that he remembers the little things you mention to him on a whim.

When you don’t say anything in excitement to his plan, he pours slightly, nudging at your shoulder with his nose.

“Have you grown tired of me?” His voice is slightly muffled against your skin and you laugh a little bit, the sound making him smile slightly, hiding it against your collarbones, “Do you wish to cast me aside and take on a different lover?”

Your mouth drops open in a loud laugh, shoving your shoulder upwards so that his chin would fall off and you look at him in shock.

But there’s a teasing grin on his face, one that truly just wanted to see you smile.

“I’m just trying to be sensible,” you say with a pout, craning your neck as you glance up at him, your legs sprawling out on his, “You have that meeting with your advisors and I have to pretend I’m not listening to your meeting with your advisors.”

Gojo’s eyes crinkle upwards, soft and gentle as he looks at you like you raised the moon, and pinches your arm slightly.

“I’ve told you if you want to join us you’re welcome to,” he says against the skin of your neck, his lips moving fast and you try to hide your bursts of giggles at the ticklish feeling, “I’d much prefer having you inside with me than standing alone outside.” You also try to hide the way you burn up wherever his fingers are, which at the moment are gripping at your hips.

“But it’s more fun when it feels like I’m learning state secrets,” you murmur teasingly, turning around a bit so that the two of you are face to face. So close that you could count the amount of eyelashes he had and the little dust of barely visible freckles on his cheeks. He was training more than usual now, spending more time in the sun. His pink lips pull into a wide smile when he finally sees you, all of you, and runs a hand under your calf and up to your thigh to hike it up over his waist.

Gojo’s eyes trail over your features for a silent second, admiring your appearance early in the morning, disheveled from a good night's rest. You feel like hiding, but admire the endless attention you receive from him at the same time. You feel foolish when you note how his features soften, his smile genuine and bright when his thumb traces over the hairs of your eyebrow.

A part of you never thought you would have a husband who looked at you the way he does. When you were younger you always assumed you’d end up a spinster or married off to an old man in need of an heir. This is why you so eagerly accepted the Gojo family’s initial proposal, but you never expected much to come from it. Never in your dreams did you envision the Gojo Satoru holding you close to him with such tender care, or that he’d gingerly run his fingers across the slope of your nose just to memorize your bone structure.

Never this.

Gojo Satoru was somebody who you had grown up with but observed from a distance. You always assumed that he and his family would prefer for him to marry a girl with a more…favorable background than you, but by a force of fate, you were the lucky girl they picked. You found yourself immensely lucky seeing that it was either him or evil incarnate himself, but some mornings you wake up and expect to blink yourself out of this dream. That you’ll turn around to find some other man than him, somebody with an oily smile and evil eyes. But just like this morning you woke up to fluttering kisses on the exposed skin of your shoulder and slender fingers trailing up your arm.

“You have that look,” Gojo murmurs gently, his eyes tracing the way your lips part, the way they do when you’re in your world, “The one where you’re deep in thought,” he says, his voice a little softer as your gaze settles back onto him.

You think a little longer, eyes squinting as you smile.

It’s been a while since the two of you have had a decent amount of time alone together. Mornings together, dinners, and then nights climbing into bed seemed to be the only blips of time when he wasn’t riddled with counsels and you with overseeing and trying to take care of problems the people of the neighboring towns were dealing with (last week you had to carefully settle a dispute with two farmers arguing over a goat, claiming it was their own.)

“I'm thinking….” you chew on your bottom lip a little bit, “I’m thinking I want to go away,” you say with a sigh, resting your back upon the headboard behind you as Gojo leans upwards, resting his weight on his arms.

His white brow cocks up, not confused, just curious.

“Where to?” He asks, and you know he could’ve asked something more extensive, but he’s gotten to know you and your strange requests, knowing you preferred simple questions instead.

You hum, crossing your legs across the bed as you bring his hand back to yours and play with the wedding ring on his finger. He lets you do it, his fingers curling a bit so that they can hold onto yours, limiting your movements just a little bit.

“Your summer home,” you say, tilting your head towards him, a gleam in your eyes, “The one near the ocean. Do you remember? The one where we all used to go when we were younger?”

Gojo nods a little bit, his pink lips and pink cheeks pulling upwards in a little grin. This was something he would very much be willing to fulfill.

“I think that’s doable,” he says and your smile widens, “We can invite-”

“No,” you cut him off, shaking your head, eyes flitting to his momentarily before they dropped back down to his large hands, which were freckles slightly as well, “Just us.”

Gojo nods a little bit, swaying his head from side to side as he thinks about how quickly he can put all of this together. Maybe if it were any other man he’d be taken aback by the strange and unexpected request, but he was your husband and was used to your nature by now.

“I’ll tell my men, I’m sure we’ll be able to pull some strings and be there by next week,” Gojo tells you after a minute of thinking and you grin, going to say something but get interrupted by a steady knock on the door.

“My lady?” One of the girls, Alina, calls out, and you look back at Gojo with a smile, knowing the slight angry pout that’s going to be taking over his face.

“Coming!” you respond after a beat, pressing a soft kiss to your husband's forehead as you brush the white strands of hair away from his face before pushing the blanket off of both you and your husband as you swivel your legs around the bed, sitting up as you stretch your arms above your head and yawn.

You hear the bed squeak as Gojo does the same, the wooden floor creaking as he stands up, walking over to your side as he leans his back on one of the pillars of the bed, waiting for you to stand.

When you finally do he leans down to press a chaste kiss to your lips, knowing how much you were averse to his breath in the morning, and another one to the tip of your nose. His hand rests at the back of your head, gentle and soft.

“I’ll bring up the trip to my advisors today,” he starts, and your eyes twinkle, “And I’ll see you at dinner,” he tells you, and you nod, running your hand up and down his sturdy arm. You pinch at the muscles and he yelps a little bit, looking down to where your fingers are and you can’t help but laugh, soothing over the spot.

“I’ll see you then,” you say with a smile. There’s a little silent beat before he speaks.

“I love you,” Gojo’s voice lowers slightly, knowing that the women outside can’t hear him, but still wanting his words to only grace your ears.

You giggle, your cheeks pulling upwards as you smile brightly, your hands trailing upwards to tangle in the hairs at the nape of his neck.

“I love you more,” you reply giddily.

---

Once your maids came in and got you ready for the day, you bid farewell to Gojo, knowing that with how long his meetings with the advisors and counselors went you most likely weren’t going to be seeing him till later in the night.

You don’t miss the way the younger girls blush when they see him kiss you farewell on the side of your forehead or the way they stare longingly at his musculature figure as he leaves the room, but you don’t care much. They can stare as much as they’d like. You’ll stare at them. You know you’re the only one he looks at anyway. Especially when you catch the wink he sends your way before closing the door shut.

The five girls come bustling in as usual, helping you out of your sleeping garments, although you’ve told them countless times that you don’t need help to undress yourself. They help lace you up in your corset and bodice, helping you with your chosen outfit of the day. As usual, you find yourself in the plush chair as they dote over your appearance, swiping honey over your lips and dusting powder over your cheeks.

It was a routine you had slowly gotten used to. A far cry from your old life where you’d turn out of bed, get dressed in your sister's old clothes, and walk through the pantry and into the kitchens to find something to eat. But this was better, far better than that.

But despite those younger girls and their bubbly personalities, there was something off with the way your usual maids were acting. Alina, who usually was the most talkative out of the group, only met your eyes in the mirror a couple of times, her lips pressed into a thin line as she quickly looked away.

Two of the other girls, Maryam and Lilly, seemed to be whispering together in hushed tones. It was ineligible from where you were sitting, and you tried to make yourself seem as discreet as possible as you slightly angled your head towards them, but to no avail. Sometimes, when you could look up for them to clasp the gold necklace around your neck, courtesy of Gojo, you saw the way they glanced at each other and then down to you with pursed lips and downcast eyes.

When Alina went to dot some lavender oil on your wrists you saw how her hands were slightly shaking, her fingers cold and clammy.

“Alina?” You said with a little laugh, eyebrows pulled together in confusion, “Are you alright?” You pressed the backs of your fingers to her cheek and then her forehead. A couple of months ago she would’ve pulled away in shock, telling you how unorderly it was for a lady to get this close to her maid, but she’s gotten used to it, and she only pulled away after a few seconds.

The other girls around you pause as you speak, but you don’t notice how they seem to mirror Alina’s expression.

You watch as she swallows thickly, nodding her head down low as she places the glass bottle of oil down on the vanity. Her brown curls bounce a little bit with her movements, her large brown eyes wavering, as if she couldn’t bear to look at you.

A look of perplexity takes over your face. Had you said something?

“Is something wrong?” You press again, turning around in your chair as you look at the other girls who have now fallen silent. None of them seem to be looking at you.

You let out a curt laugh, arms resting on the back of the chair as your head tilts slightly.

“Alina?” You ask one more time, your voice dropping a bit out of genuine worry. But you can only watch as she takes a deep, shuddering breath, her head still facing downwards as if there was a weight on her shoulders.

You go to stand up but she quickly ushers for you to sit back down, though you see the way she brings her palms up to her eyes, trying to wipe something away.

Was she crying?

“What…?” You reach your hands out, trying to see what is wrong, but she looks up quickly and you’re taken slightly aback by the way her eyes seem bloodshot and wet cheeks, stained with tears.

She shakes her head again, lips trembling as she quickly bows her head to you.

“I’m s-sorry my lady,” she says in a choked voice, “We’re done. I’ll see you tonight.” And before you can ask what was going on, to see if she was okay, you watch as she almost runs out of the room, leaving your other maids standing in a heavy, awkward silence. You look around to see what the other maids are looking like, surely as startled as you were, but if anything, they seemed to be struggling as equally as Alina was.

“What’s….what’s wrong? Do you know-” “We have to leave, my lady,” Maryam quickly says, cutting you off unintentionally as the other girls mirror her movements and bow their heads down in respect, “I apologize.”

You sputter, trying to find something to say, but fall silent as you watch them file out in your room in the same hurry as Alina.

You stand still, staring at the large wooden door.

What was that?

—-

You try going about your day like normal.

You asked around, trying to see if anybody had seen where Alina or the rest of your maids had run off to, but nobody seemed to find an answer.

Not only that, but it seemed like the girl's strange behavior was reciprocated around the entire estate. Wherever you went, people would look at you for a second longer. You try not to make it obvious, and after years of being surveyed, you’ve gotten rather good at discretely listening in on what others are doing and saying.

Walking around the halls alone, you keep your head down and ears open. You don’t miss the way some of the servants murmur things to each other behind their hands, their stares never leaving your frame. You’re grateful that today was one of the days Shoko, who you had become good friends with, wasn’t able to join you. With her rapid talking you doubt you would be able to hear any of the gossip even if it was shouted in your left ear.

You felt like you had been transported back to your old home, with your father's wife and your sisters. The constant whispers wherever you went, the eyes trained on your back. It was benign and odd, something that had never, ever happened until today.

Something was wrong, and nobody was telling you what it was.

You had initially wanted to eavesdrop on the meeting Gojo was having with his advisors, but with the pit in your stomach and the dizzying feeling you were having everywhere you went, you decided to hide the rest of the day in the library, finding a little alcove where you could nestle away from everybody else.

Truth be told, you had known something was wrong for the past week. Although today was the first physical evidence of this hunch you’ve had, there’s been something off in the air and you didn’t have the heart to voice this insanity to your husband. You tried brushing it off after the first couple of days.

As somebody who grew up around maids and servants, cooks and cleaners, you were aware of how they were often the first to learn of any news. Words traveled fast with those who worked, and it didn’t take long to settle. You had been the subject of whispers and subjected others to being the victim of it, but either way, you saw firsthand how quickly gossip would and could spread. Especially when it was good. Even more so when it was bad.

You could only wonder what it was that was plaguing the mouths of everybody around you. Has somebody passed? Somebody you knew? Your palm grew sweaty at the thought. There were only so many people you were close to and one of them you saw alive this morning. It couldn’t have been your father, they wouldn’t drag it out like this. You chew your lips raw, thinking. If it wasn’t a death, then it must be regarding the social circle sphere that you’ve recently found yourself a part of.

You stare at the walls lined with books, blankly blinking as you rake your mind.

It had to be serious and it had to be important. But as much as you tried to think, you kept drawing blanks.

And so, as much as you tried telling yourself it was nothing, you knew deep down it was something. Today you had seen the people around you exhibit what you were more fearful of, but this past week you could pick up on hushed and worried voices. You could barely even read the first page of the book you had blindly selected from one of the many shelves, and when the sun set in the large window behind you, you had to remind yourself that there was still dinner to be had.

You begrudgingly made your way to the dining hall, knowing you could barely stomach a block of cheese let alone a full meal. You had spent the last couple of hours letting your mind run over all the horrible things that could be coming your way, and having to mull over all those horrible things over food might cause you to become sick.

The guards open the large double doors for you as you begin to enter, and you feel a part of you deflate seeing that Gojo isn’t already there.

You slowly make your way to your seat, moving in a trance as you pull your chair in, looking around to get a sense of the mood in the room. Heavy, from what you could tell. Perfect, you think to yourself.

The servants bring in different assortments of food prepared tonight, and had you had a better appetite you might’ve finished them the second they had arrived. But it felt like there was cotton shoved in your ears, barely hearing anything they were telling you.

You swallow your bile down, your head ringing as you look up from your plate and to the man in front of you, your forehead dotted with sweat. You like your chapped lips, fidgeting with the ring on your finger.

“Where,” your tongue feels heavy in your mouth, “Where is my husband?”

The servant blinks once, then twice.

He rubs the back of his head apprehensively, looking behind him to the closed doors, and then back to you. You could feel the way he was taking in your sick appearance, the way you seemed to be swaying side to side in your set as a means to help your queasy self.

“Lord Gojo won’t be joining dinner tonight, my lady.” The man tells you. You know his name and have seen him countless times, but you can’t think about what the first letter of his name even starts with.

“Did he say why?” You think your hands are shaking, and you grip the fabric of your dress to calm them down.

In all honesty, you don’t know exactly why you’re freaking out the way you are. It could be something simple that’s happened and Gojo’s only stalling to tell you because he doesn’t find it to be important. But in all the time you’ve lived at this estate, have become the Lady of the North, you’ve seen things going right and things going wrong. You’ve observed the way the maids and servants act with one another and how they act with you when things aren’t going well. They’ve taken a deep liking to you, and respect you and your title. They care about you, which you still have trouble accepting given your past life, but they do things out of the goodness of their hearts. So if they were talking behind your back, it couldn’t be because they no longer care about you. It’s worse, and you can’t fathom what it must be.

“No…my lady, I apologize.”

You glance up at the man again and nod slowly.

“Thank you,” you chew on the inside of your cheek, “That, that’s all.”

He bows down, giving you a small smile, one that doesn’t quite reach his eyes and exits.

You look down at your plate and heave out a breath.

—-

Dinner was spent in total silence, but that was a given seeing that Gojo never showed up.

You don’t know how long it took for you to walk up the stairs that led to your shared bedroom, but you know it took longer than usual with the way it seemed like your legs were weighing you down.

When you entered the room, all you were reminded of was this morning with Alina and the other maids, and it only worsened your already raving heart. You tried to sit at the edge of your bed and calm your breathing, but slowly you realized that you needed to be moving. Sitting was only going to worsen your condition.

You paced around the expansive room, fidgeting with your ring, moving it up and down your finger as you tried to busy yourself with taking off your other pieces of jewelry.

You had also requested for the girls to not come in tonight. You needed to be alone, not knowing what you’d do if you were to see their pale, fear-stricken faces again.

With shaky hands and multiple efforts, you were finally able to unclamp your necklace and take off your earrings. You tried to wet some cloth and drag it across your face, hoping the cool water would help. It didn’t.

A part of you tried to force yourself to think that you were simply overreacting. There was nothing to worry about. But deep inside, you knew that that was a lie. You felt this same way when you were a little girl and your father's men raided you and your mother's little home to take you away from here. This was the same feeling you had when you were informed of your marriage with Naoya Zenin. It was the same, deafening and nauseating feeling whenever you’d walk into a room and know that everybody there knew your secrets before you even knew them.

There was a moment in which you thought perhaps that part of your life was left behind, but it seemed like with every creeping shadow, it was still following you around.

Still, you did what you could to distract yourself. You were able to unlace the back of your bodice and corset, pulling your shaky legs out of your petticoat and skirt. You ringed around your wardrobe and found a shift that was suitable for the summer breeze.

There seemed to be only a few seconds where you wouldn’t look at the door, but you couldn’t help yourself. You’d glance at the old grandfather clock in the corner, feeling your blood roar in your ears as the hands ticked away later into the night. It was unusual for a meeting to take this long. And if it did, Gojo would’ve warned you ahead of time so that you wouldn’t worry the way you’re doing now.

It took nearly another two hours of your frantic effort to stay awake when your bedroom door creaked open and Gojo walked in. His white hair was messy, eyes sunken in. When he saw that you were awake his glare softened slightly.

You could only blink when you saw him, your nails digging into your palm, surely leaving little crescent moons indented into your skin.

There was an unwelcome silence that followed afterward. You watched as he shut the door, rubbing his tired eyes, and looked back up at you through furrowed brows.

“You’re not asleep?” He groggily asked as he began to take off his boots, his back rippling with muscles from under his tunic as you gnawed on your lips and he stood up from his position on the floor.

“I couldn’t,” you simply said, moving forward a couple of steps and slowly leaning into his outstretched arms as he pulled you into his chest, planting a tender, heavy kiss on the side of your head. One of his hands pressed tightly against your back, not moving.

There was another moment of silence, one heavy and unknown as you listened to the sound of his heartbeat.

“Is everything alright?” Your voice was muffled, but still audible, as you finally asked the question that was searing into your head.

There was another beat of silence, but this one was uncomfortable. Gojo hadn’t let go of you yet.

“Yes,” he finally said, but you had heard better lies from your sisters after they ate your pastures and said they didn’t than this.

Your brows furrowed as you looked up to him.

“What took so long?” You pressed, pulling away slightly as his lips formed into a thin line, and he dragged a hand down his face.

“Just…state affairs,” he turned away from you, against eye contact as he ran another hand through his hair.

You scoffed, rolling your eyes as you crossed your arms over your chest. You thought that he had at least begun to trust you enough not to lie this blatantly.

“Have one of the states suddenly terminated their subject's existence?” You tried to tease, but your voice was flat and you couldn’t hide the curiosity and hurt behind it. Gojo didn’t laugh, which hurt even more. You leaned back on one of the pillars of your bed and watched as he stood with his back to you, contemplating something in utter silence.

How you loathed silence.

“What’s wrong?” You ask again, your tone heavy, not leaving any room for him to stay quiet.

Your brows furrowed even more, arms tighter around your middle as he heaved a heavy breath, and when he finally turned you wished he would’ve just stayed hidden from you. Because there were spots of red in the whites of his shimmering eyes, and that was more fearful than the quiet.

You tilt your head, not knowing what to do, and see his breath in shakily. The only time you had seen him break was that night he confessed to you in the field. Never again. Not until now.

You take a tentative step forward, eyes searching his but he can’t bear to look at you.

“I know there’s something wrong,” you say shakily, taking a deep breath as you pinch the bridge of your nose, “Alina nearly broke down in front of me today and everyone around the house seems to be walking on glass. So…so please just tell me what it is.” You’re pleading with him at this point, and you don’t care if you’re losing a shred of dignity.

Gojo takes a deep breath, his hand searching for yours as you oblige. It’s warm, comforting. His thumb rubs up and down your wrist apologetically.

His nose picks up on the smell of lavender oil, one he’s come to associate with you. It’s calming, a gentle reminder of his home, the one thing he fights for. When he looks at you and sees the worried crease of your brow, it only tugs on his heart more.

“You’re…aware of how there’s been some conflict with the South for a while, right?” Gojo finally asks, though it seems like speaking is physically hurting him, “And how tensions worsened when my father stepped down?”

You nod slowly, knowing of this. After all, you might’ve been kept in the shadows in your old life, but you weren’t daft. You tried to keep up with the relations of the state as much as possible. Your father also did what he could to inform you of the North’s relations with the other tribes and nations before your wedding. Given its sudden nature, there were some things you weren’t able to fully learn until you got here, but it was common knowledge that the north and south were always teetering on an edge.

It was centuries of conflicts that dated well before your time. Bloody disputes over land, women, and coin often seemed to be the root cause of all the troubles, and however petty they might seem, they’ve mended themselves deep in the current rulers of the country. Gojo’s father, the previous Lord of the North, was a peaceful man, but there were tensions even he couldn’t solve. The Southern King often ruled with an ironclad fist that only grew more spiteful when the old lord stepped down and Gojo took his place.

You remember your father sitting in front of you with an ancient book spread out in your old home's library, a candle flickering in the background as he told you all this. And the final thing that you couldn’t forget he said regarding the current relations between the north and south were embedded in your mind.

“I know the king isn’t happy with this arrangement at all,” your father had said as you flipped through the crinkly pages, smoothing over the wrinkles on his forehead as you glanced upwards.

“Because of the Princess?” You asked, looking down briefly to read a passage on one of the northern wars that happened nearly three centuries ago.

“Partially because of that,” your father agreed, his eyes glancing over your features.

In the candlelight, when it was dim and nobody was around, he was allowed to look at you and see his daughter, not a bastard child everybody swore you were. Sometimes when you looked at him, he saw your mother. And when that happened, he had to look away.

“But because of you. Because of who you are. Never forget the blood that runs in your veins is the blood that old lords and kings fought over.”

Your eyes narrowed, trying to think back to your sister's history lessons you listened to behind closed doors.

“Me?” You parrot, confused. Your father nodded, his fingers scratching at the slight stubble on his chin.

“There are greater enemies than ones gained from lost land, and the South would never forget those who allied with the North to get them where they are now.”

So you knew that it certainly didn’t help that Gojo married a daughter of the Western ruler, a union that in its nature was egregious to the South.

“And before I married you, my,” he squeezed his eyes shut, breathing deeply, “My father had agreed for me to marry the Southern princess to mend our relationship.”

You knew of the women Gojo had lined up, some in his favor and some not. The Southern princess was one of them. You had seen her a handful of times at the old gatherings you were forced to go to when you were younger. There was always a circle of girls circling around her, their voices chirpy and pitched like canaries, and whenever she said something, loud laughter (faux) would fall comedically from their lips. Your sisters always tried to befriend her, but you knew it wasn’t your place. You’d observe them from afar, taking note of the ridiculous amount of jewels and stones that decorated her bodice, her neck, her wrists, her hair. The boys would stare at her from a distance, talking to each other, trying to decide who should approach her first. The princess was indeed a true beauty, perhaps the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen, but that was the last bit of knowledge you had regarding her.

Much like you who was initially supposed to marry another man, Gojo was close to accepting the South’s proposal to marry him off with their only daughter. But something happened, and the former Lady of the North proposed for you to marry her son instead.

“So?” You shake your head in confusion, your stomach churning, “You’re married to me now,” you state the obvious, but you see the way he smiles softly at that, nodding.

“The Southern King wasn’t fond of our marriage,” you watch as he twirls his ring around, “They’ve been holding off on trade with the North and anybody who’s pledged allegiance to us. They’ve formed naval blockades around parts of our ocean that stop us from reaching our traders across the sea.” Gojo jams his palms into his eyes. For a moment he doesn’t look like the ruler he is or the warrior he’s always been but a scared boy who doesn’t know what to do.

You take another step forward, leaning into him as he deflates into you, one hand protectively going around your shoulders and the other around your waist.

“Well, surely there are ways to figure this out,” you say as confidently as you can, “We’ll ask for a smaller cut of their exports than usual….or offer another northerner of higher ranking for their princess,” you offer, looking up at him only to see his eyes wavering, the tip of his nose pink.

He swallows thickly.

“We did,” he mutters, “We did all of those things. All of those things and more. but…”

He trails off and you shake your head, eyes wide.

“But what?” You press and he rubs at his eyes, at his stray tears.

He goes to open his mouth but he can’t. You’ve never seen him like this.

“The Southern King, he-” your husband's voice cracks and you pull away in shock, in fear, in terror as he tries to control a sob. The most feared man of all the land fighting down a sob, and all you could do was watch in fear.

“He’s promised war if we don’t abide by his terms.”

Your tears have stung in your eyes, maybe because you were terrified of the response because a part of you knew that something good like this could only last for so long. That your moments of bliss were only to be cherished at an arm’s length, good, but not eternal. Perhaps you should’ve known from the start, should have braced yourself for something as terminal as this.

But war? You never could have prepared yourself for this. It had been years since the land had seen war of any kind. Minor battles and conflicts were impossible to avoid, but a declaration of war from a king was beyond what you could have comprehended.

Your eyes blink rapidly, your fingers twitching as they reach upwards to cover your mouth. There were only so many routes Gojo could decide to go down on. Depending on the conditions of the statement the king had set forth, there might be a way to avoid any senseless bloodshed. But you knew your husband, knew how much he cared for his land, for his people, for you, and if any one of those things were at stake…

“And,” your lips tremble, and how Gojo longs to kiss it away, if only his hands weren’t shaking and heart pounding, “And what are his terms?”

A grim look takes over his face, one that looks like a knife has been dug into his stomach and has begun to twist. He opens his mouth once, twice, and fails. He can’t speak. He can’t say the wretched words out loud.

“That,” Gojo’s voice is wavering, and it’s a strange, unnerving thing to hear, “That I uphold by the initial promise. That I marry his daughter. That I separate from…” he blinks slowly, his mouth closing and then opening, a little gasp of horror leaving your lips as you piece together what he was saying.

You’re shaking your head, lips trembling, moving away from him as you walk around the room until you’re standing near your vanity, your chest shaking with quivering breaths as you try desperately to keep your stinging tears at bay.

You can hear him shuffling, but with your back to him, you can only feel his presence come up from behind you as his hands try to grasp at your elbows, trying to move your hands away from your face. But it’s no use. It’s as if you’ve been petrified, turned into a stone statue. The only sign of movement was the way your chest heaved up and down with each gulp of air you were taking.

He’s calling your name, but you feel like a fish underwater. You can’t hear anything correctly, can only hear the pounding, shuddering beat of your dying heart. You squeeze your eyes shut, trying to hold on to the cries that are threatening to spill from your lips. You realize now what it was that the maids were talking about, why Alina was crying. It was no surprise to you that they were able to get word of them before you did. And you were no longer confused by their sullen responses.

Because there truly was no answer. No good answer, at least.

You couldn’t justify a war over a marriage that didn’t work out. You couldn’t find it in yourself to allow Gojo to go through with it, despite knowing that was most likely what he was planning to do. An image of marching men, heading straight through a firey unknown, swords raised, and arrows drawn. You think of bloodstained letters finding their way home, wives crumbling upon finding the news of their husbands dead. Children left abandoned by their fathers and siblings. All of it in the name of a marriage. One marriage to survive while others withered away. Your eyes widened at the horrifying thought, trying to humor the other one.

The one that included your separation.

Separating from the only man you’ve ever loved, who you consider to be your other half seemed…barbaric. You couldn’t imagine a life where you wouldn’t wake up next to him, couldn’t think of a day where he wouldn’t sneak through hallways and corridors just to surprise you with some flowers he had picked from the garden. Your mind flashed, thinking of what separation truly meant. Banishment, for you. Your old life wouldn’t accept you, his new wife wouldn’t want you near. There was nowhere you could go that you had any familiarity with.

You felt your knees give out from beneath you, falling to the floor as you hunch over, cradling your thighs to your chest. You feel stupid, knowing how childish you must’ve looked to him. But you felt like you had been plagued by every sort of emotion, and it was tethering you downwards, down where you felt more safe.

Somewhere in the midst of this you could feel his guiding hands sprawl on your back, one slowly circling your shoulders. Gojo must’ve come down to meet you where you were, and you felt like a shell of a person as he gingerly pulled you toward his chest.

One of his hands moved upwards to cradle the side of your head, his thumb rubbing up and down your forehead, as he shakily tried to wipe your watery tears away. If only you knew how much it pained him to see you cry. He wished you knew that he’d rather be shot with a thousand arrows than see you cry tears of sorrow.

He was talking, you knew he was because you could hear muffeled noises from above you that mirrored his tone and voice. But you couldn’t hear anything, trying your best to focus on the pieces of woven threads of the carpet beneath you.

“...alright,” you think he says, making out some words, “...will figure…out…alright?”

You can only nod.

Alright?

—-

Nothing was alright.

You’ve barely slept ever since you got the news.

The people around you seem to have pieced together why you’re acting the way you are, and thankfully, they don’t push it. Alina doesn’t ask why you’ve suddenly grown so silent, none of your other maids jest stupidly when they feel you’re especially down, and even the younger girls don’t pretend to fawn over Gojo, gently applying rose water to your hair as they give you soft smiles.

Everybody in the estate knows what’s happening, and nobody dares to bring it up. Wherever you go there seems to be a darkness that follows you. People go quiet when you walk past them, and looks of pity and solemness are clear on their faces. You feel like a ghost that’s wading through the halls with nowhere to go. You feel like a dead body roaming the land of the living.

There were several of these meetings you went to, knowing that these ones should not be heard behind a closed door. You were told to come to more of them, but you slowly realized that the more you heard, the more sick you felt.

A part of you was screaming at yourself, begging to see what was truly at stake. A simple marriage was not worth the countless lives at stake. No matter how long this feud was going on between the North and South, you knew that using your marriage was just another scheme to worsen it.

The more you allowed yourself to think about the situation at hand, the more you felt yourself going mad. You knew that war wasn’t the right answer, and it wasn’t the one you wanted. You couldn't even begin to think about the piles of bodies, the smoke rising into the ashen sky as they were set on fire in Northern tradition. You think with a shudder about the homes raided, the women assaulted, just how much men turn to animals when war turns lawless. You think about the years to come, when there’s nothing left of you but bones. How you’d be remembered in the stories, as the selfish whore wife that wouldn’t separate from her husband and would rather watch lands be torn apart instead. So no, war wasn’t the option.

But separating from your husband? How on earth was the better choice?

Perhaps a while ago you wouldn’t have wanted to separate from him because you refused to go back to your old life. You didn’t want to go back to your old room that could only be accessed through the dingy pantry and a dimly lit corridor.

You didn’t want the constant reminder of your untrue blood, how much of a bastard reminder you were to your fathers life. Months ago you would’ve tied yourself to a tree and let a bear feast off of you then become the social outcast again because you had lived through it once and would rather wind up dead.

But now, you’d chain yourself to that tree because leaving Gojo might be the other thing that would tear you apart.

You never thought it would be possible to be loved by another person who you love just as much. You had forced yourself into believing that tender care and pure adoration wasn’t something you would ever receive in this lifetime. In all honesty, you didn’t expect to receive it from Gojo Satoru either. But you did, and living a life without it would be more than empty. You knew you could never have him the way you do now, casted aside as another woman takes your place. And perhaps he might come to love her just as much, even more. But another part of you, the part that’s been trying to claw its way out ever since you were a little girl is screeching. Screeching that you deserved that shot of happiness, of joy, that those moments you shared with your husband should’ve only been shared by you two alone.

A part of you wilts when you even begin trying to think of mornings without him. Without him pulling you into his chest, murmuring words of nonsense into your ear as you pretend to sleep. Your heart burns when you begin to think of him kissing another girl the way he kisses you, bringing her to parties and balls tied around his elbow. You know the ton would appreciate a princess with the lord of the north far more than you, and you can’t begin to imagine what would happen if Gojo began to prefer another union. One that benefited him more than it benefited his partner.

You weren’t a jealous person by any means. Sometimes you got snippy, and sometimes you glared when women looked too long at your husband. But this was more than simple jealousy. It was biting away at you, taking away from the brightness that once bloomed across your entire body.

Maybe deep down you thought you deserved that chance of a better life, and maybe that part of you was just too optimistic knowing the hand you’ve been dealt with up until now.

But gods would sooner fall out of the sky than you tell all this to Gojo. Not the latter, at least. But regardless, it seemed to brew more and more arguments between the two of you as of late.

“I don’t understand why this is something that still needs to be discussed,” Gojo bit out one night as he was undressing to sleep, taking off his uniform as he angrily hung it up.

You had one hand wrapped around the bedpost, fidgeting with your necklace, the singular pearl moving back and forth as you shook your head.

You knew it was a bad idea bringing up the war plans right now. It was one of the first nights where Gojo was actually free from his meetings, earlier than what had become the norm. But it was also the first time you had properly seen him in almost a week, and your mind was nothing if not still.

“I’m not saying we terminate the marriage,” you pause when he snaps his neck over to you, his eyes darkening with a glare, “But surely we can’t be thinking of war. ‘Toru there has-”

“There is no other way,” his voice is deep, his back to you as he takes off his bottoms, kicking his heavy boots off as the thud against the wall, “I’ve told you this countless times I’m not separating from our marriage.”

Your chest is heavy, your heart churning, and he can’t tell. You know there are thousands of other things that are riddling his mind right now, but you wish he could see what you’re begging him to see. If there was one thing you’ve grown to know about Gojo is that his stubborn nature was unbridled and steady.

You wanted him to take a second and understand, or perhaps he did understand but chose to see this as a black and white matter, the gravity of what he was suggesting. It had been years since an actual war had been fought. Years since men were sent in blind with only their swords and their wits to keep them alive. None of you had seen the true calamity of war, the sheer destruction that followed from it. Gojo was thinking as the cold hearted warrior he had been trained to be, but not like the man you had fallen in love with.

“What if you…gods,” you groan, exasperated and tired, “What if you take the princess on as another wife?” The suggestion itself tastes like poison, bitter poison on your tongue, and maybe it soothes you just a little bit when Gojo lets out a bitter chuckle, his hands gripping the table as his knuckles turn white.

“Do you want me to do that? Truly?” He spits it out and you let out a deep sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose as you shrug helplessly.

“No, fuck. No, I don't want you to do that! But what else can-”

He raises his hand upwards, something he does when he wants to interrupt you, and you clamp your mouth shut.

“We’ve declared war today,” he glances at you from over his shoulder and your eyes widen, “It’s final.”

You crumble against the wooden pole, fingers curling into the bed sheets as you choke on air. Final? Your fingers are trembling, your lips quivering as it feels like you’re struggling to breathe. No, you know you are. You feel lightheaded, the little bits of dinner you had surging upwards, bile filling your mouth.

He hadn’t told you about any of this, had silently refused to tell you the status of this situation because he knew how loudly and adamantly you would protest it. But it was done now. There was nothing else you could do.

Gojo looked over at you, his face that was once cold and unmoving shifting to one of worry. Moving away from the warrior he was forced to be this past month and back to your husband.

He moves to where you were, but you shake your head, not bearing to look him in the eyes as you shakily make your way over to your side of the bed, climb in without a word and watch as your shoulders shake with silent sobs.

His mouth opens and closes. He shuts his eyes, jamming his palms into his eyes as he clenches his fists.

“I love you,” he whispers finally, and the words seem to carry slowly between your two bodies that to him seem oceans apart, “So much,” he feels like he’s choking on your silence, it’s thick and settles deep in his throat. He’s been punched, hit, kicked, beat and thrown before, but none of them have knocked the air from his lungs much like you staying utterly quiet.

“I’m doing this for us,” his voice is wavering, why can’t you understand that he wants to yell, but won’t, he’d never raise his voice at you, “When this is all over we’ll go to the house near the ocean,” your heart cracks, “Remember how you wanted to go?”

Gojo watches as your shoulders stop shaking, the only sound in the room becoming your labored breaths.

“Please, darling, please say something. Anything.”

You’re the only person Gojo would beg to. The only human who could hear his desperate pleas, the way his commanding voice would crack and crumble and shatter all at your mercy. You sniffle quietly, pulling the blanket closer to your chest. You love him, gods above you love him. You don't know yourself how much you love him. Sometimes it frightens you how much you do.

But in this moment, the man behind you was the Lord of the North and not your husband, and so you stayed quiet, letting the only sound that he heard of you be your cries.

—-

You can’t seem to find reasons to leave bed most of these days.

Every time you look in the mirror, you feel like you’re staring back at a stranger. There are dark circles beneath your eyes, your lips chapped and cracking. Your cheeks have fallen, sullen and flat. Smiling has become a chore, laughing a rare occurrence. As the North was beginning to prepare and brace for the oncoming war, your home was starting to look more like housing quarters for troops rather than the place you used to adore.

You haven’t seen Gojo in a while, and each day it seems like he’s pulling away from you. At night, you barely see each other. He comes to sleep far later than you do and wakes up earlier and earlier with each passing day. Sometimes you’re awoken to the bed dipping when he climbs in, other times you pretend to be asleep even when he presses a lingering kiss to the side of your forehead, your fists balling up when he whispers a quiet I love you in your ear before he sleeps.

It’s not that you don’t love him. And you don’t fear him, you never have. Sometimes you curse yourself when you don’t mutter the words back, but you’re suddenly and crudely reminded that outside your bedroom walls, there were people actively preparing for a war being fought in your names, and it stills you from moving.

It was becoming rare sharing a meal with your husband, even rarer to see him anywhere but the counseling chambers, and it no longer felt like it did months ago. Every time you walked past him, you two were so busy and wrapped in your own minds that you didn’t even acknowledge each other until it was too late, your neck twisting as he walked on by, and his body turning when you rounded the corner to another hallway.

You wonder if this was truly the love that was fated to emerge from this marriage ever since the beginning. That the feelings you felt were mirrored in an act that Gojo was putting up with until this point, if this war was bound to happen and using the arrangement between you and Gojo as a catalyst for the chaos that was to follow.

The idea that was slowly planted in your head began to flower, and it caused you to see things for what they weren’t. Eventually leading to looking blankly at the wall when he walked into your bedroom one night, hours earlier than when he usually comes, and you don’t even spare a glance to him.

“I’m leaving tomorrow.”

Your head slowly turns to where he was standing at the door, eyes gradually making their way upwards to his face, lips parted. You were leaning on the headrest behind you, twisting and turning the ring around your finger.

In this moment, you allow yourself to look at Gojo. You take in his disheveled appearance, the white stubble that was dotting across his jaw. A couple months ago you might’ve felt your cheeks heat up at the sight, never expecting for him to look so ruggedly handsome looking like this, but now, all you’re able to think about was how much this cursed war was taking away from time he cherished being able to shave himself clean. He looks worn down, aged, no longer the youthful and cheerful man you remembered. How was this happening? How was any of this real?

You blink, shaking your head a bit as you come back to reality, biting your tongue for a few seconds before you speak.

“Leaving?” You finally ask, watching ashe nods, nearing where you were sitting on the bed, leaning down the untie the straps and leather clasps of his boots, letting out a sigh of finally being able to relax as he shrugs his coat off, running a hand through his white strands that seemed to be longer than from the last time you saw him.

He nods dimly, his lips pressed into a thin line as he looks you over, his eyes falling when he takes notice of your crestfallen state, the way the light that was in your eyes has seemed to die out.

“I have to go rally more allies across the West,” he explains, slowly making his way over to the bed as he drops down on the corner of it, his hand reaching out for yours but you don’t move, “Your father has promised us his troops but there are smaller cities scattered across that still need some convincing.”

Your fingers curl around your blanket, eyes pulled together in a furrow.

“Let me come,” you tell him but he stares at you for a few seconds, trying to see if you were joking.

When he realizes you're being serious he shakes his head, his blue eyes a dark color as he looks away for a second to stare at the wall.

“It’s dangerous-“”

“But I know the cities!” You cry out, the first time you’ve heard your voice be this loud in a while, and it takes him by surprise as well, “I can help! I’ve been sitting here feeling like a duck waiting to be shot! I…” you stop for a second, the stupid tears that have seemed to become a common occurrence burning your eyes.

You look away, biting your lip to keep it from shivering, hoping he doesn’t come near you.

“This is my fault,” you whisper, “Everything that’s to come, it’s all my fault. If only I didn’t…” your voice cracks, your chin falling to your chest as your eyes wring shut, wanting to keep everything and everyone away.

But Gojo, like always does, is drawn to you like a moth to a flame. You hear the sheets rustle as he moves across the bed and settles in beside you, his tall and lean frame shadowing over your body as you refuse to look at him, not wanting him to see how weak you’ve become.

You feel one of his hands reach for your jaw, his fingers curling around your ear and holding the back of your head as he gently turns you to face him.

You try desperately to keep your eyes somewhere else, focusing on his knees rather than him, but when you feel a tear escape and roll down your cheek, being wiped away by his thumb, you break, barreling yourself into his chest as you cry.

His hands circle your body, caging you to him as you feel your chest shake. It’s painful and it burns, but you can’t seem to stop. You can feel his heartbeat ratting against his chest, a faint smell of smoke clinging to his skin.

“None of this is your fault,” he murmurs against your head, “You’re not to blame for anything.”

“Satoru, I,” your hands curl as they rest on your thigh, a tear catching on the tip of your nose, “I’m s-scared,” you choke, the words slurring on your tongue, “I’m so terrified all the time. This…this war, these plans, the strategies e-everyone keeps talking about,” your hand curls against his tunic, gripping into the fabric as if it was tethering you to the earth.

Gojo takes in a deep breath, and you feel his lips pressing to the crown of your head, soft and warm. Oh, how you missed his lips.

“There’s nothing to be scared about,” his voice is slightly muffled, but it’s steady and sure, “Everything will be alright.”

But you shake your head, a fresh wave of tears sprouting.

“How do you know?” you’ve been asking yourself the same question over and over, “None of us have even lived through a war, l-let alone fight in one.”

“I,” Gojo sighs, and you imagine the pensive look on his face, “I don’t know. I have no idea how any of this is going to go. And,” he pauses, thinking briefly, “I’m scared too. I’m scared that all of our plans will go to shit and we’ll encounter a force we never expected. Everyday I examine different escape routes we should go through, creating different maps that might save us. I don’t know what I’m doing half the time,” he admitted with a solemn laugh, “But…but no matter what, I’ll still come back to you when all of this is over.”

Your breathing shudders, and you raise your head to look at him. You’re sure you look like an absolute mess, with tears staining your face, you’re constant sniffles to keep your nose under control, the reds of your eyes. But Gojo still smiles, his hands moving to either side of your face, his thumb moving back and forth across your cheeks.

“There’s my girl,” his voice is barely above a whisper, but he sounds proud, his blue eyes lightening up a little bit. You let out a little cry when you see his tender smile, the way he looks at you like you’re the most beautiful person he’s ever seen.

“P-promise, promise you’ll come back to me,” you say through broken sobs, wiping messily at your cheeks, your palm rubbing harshly against your chin so that the tears don’t fall against the sheets, “Promise me that you will come here again.”

He nods, his own eyes wavering when he understands just how much this has been tearing you apart. One of his hands moves to cradle your head, bring you closer to his and he rests his forehead against yours with a quiet thump.

His nose nudges yours, and his lips inches away from your trembling ones. Your eyes close shut, hands refusing to move away from his sturdy chest.

“I, Gojo Satoru, will come back to you,” his voice is clear but heavy as if he intended for his words to travel across the world and through different lifetimes to end up back here, “I promise this to you. As your husband, as your friend,” his voice slightly cracks, “And as the man who loves you most ardently.”

You don’t give him another second before you pull him a little bit closer by the collar of his tunic to slam your lips against his. You hear him groan instantly from underneath you, but you don’t care. Your teeth move cruising against each other, your tears mixing with your spit.

It’s messy but needed, an anchor that you’ve so desperately been craving.

Gojo’s large hands move from your back to under your ass, cupping the flesh as he grips your thighs, pulling you into his lap as his finger trails upwards to your waist, his favorite spot. His slight stubble scratches against your skin, but you’re surprised to find that you like the feel, like the way he feels.

He bites your bottom lip, slipping his tongue past yours when your mouth opens slightly and you moan against him, fingers curling tightly in his white strands of hair, tugging them harshly. It earns a deep groan from him, his fingers digging into the skin of your waist in a desperate attempt to keep himself steady.

Your back arches closer, nails raking his scalp as you tilt his head back upwards for your lips to capture his. He moves at your will, slotting himself against you, working in tandem as your chests rise and fall at the same pace.

You feel starved, needing to taste him, to feel him. You can’t remember the last time you’ve kissed him this feverishly, as if you’d die within moments if you didn’t have your skin melting against his.

The seconds seem to blur together, and before you know it, there was a loud knock at the door. You squeal, almost shoving yourself off of him as the two of you look back to see what it was.

“My, my lord?” The voice behind the door squeaks, most likely a younger soldier, “There’s been a slight shift in tomorrow's plans. The general wants to speak to you.” He clears his throat, most likely having heard your moans and you feel your cheeks heat up in embarrassment.

You look back to Gojo, and see the way his head falls and his hands curl into fists on his thighs.

Your hand traces the hot skin of his jaw, your thumb hooking underneath his chin to bring him back up to you.

“Go,” you say quietly, a small smile on your face. You try to hide your disappointment, knowing this is more important.

There’s a storm happening behind his eyes, swirls of blue and gray mixing together as his chest slightly heaves, his cheeks dusted with pink. One of his hands grips your waist, pulling you forward with no force as he kisses you once, twice more.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, kissing your cheeks softly, “I’ll come back tonight and I’ll wake you before I leave tomorrow.”

You nod, hoping he knows that you’ll be okay, and shift away slightly from his lap so that he can go.

“I love you,” he mutters against the side of your head, looking deep into your eyes before he presses his last kiss against your forehead, “Sleep well, love.”

Your smile cracks slightly, and you swallow the lump in your throat as you cross out a measly love you most and watch silently as he puts his boats and coat back on and leaves within seconds.

You stare at the messed up sheets and then to the door, accepting the fact that this would be your life from now on.

—-

Gojo left the next morning, before the sun was in the sky.

“It’ll only be three weeks at most,” Gojo assures you, and you look up to see his men preparing their horses, throwing saddles across them as they prepare their satchels of food and gear, “Two if I flatter my way through the cities.”

You giggle a little bit, rolling your eyes, the most you could muster yourself to do and wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him closer to your body.

“I’ll miss you,” you mutter, hoping nobody could hear the way your voice was barely surviving it’s need to break, “Come back as soon as you can.”

Gojo sprawls a hand across your back, tipping you up by the chin to meet his lips in another kiss. A while ago you might have felt shameful and scandalous for kissing your husband like this out in the open, but everybody was so distracted with their own tasks that they wouldn't bother to look at you right now.

You pull away slightly, cheeks heating when his pupils grow slightly, and place a hand across his sternum, rubbing up and down the vigil of the North that was pinned to his coat.

“I will,” he says, pulling you in for a tight embrace as you hug him with as much strength as you have, your cheeks pressed against his shoulder as his chin rests on the top of your head, “I’ll be back before you even realize I was gone.”

That was a few days ago, but with how little you already saw him before he left, it felt a little bit true to his words. You were so busy trying to help the war efforts around the estate that missing your husband happened in the quiet moments when you were allowed to have some silence to yourself, or in the late hours of the night when you hugged his pillow close to your chest.

When nights would come and you had had your dinner and were making your efforts to sleep, you requested to only have Alina help you get undressed and ready. She was the one you felt closest too, and the only one who never seemed to bombard you with sympathy. And after a grueling day, that was all you needed.

“Would you like some lavender oil?”

You look up from the counter, putting your necklace back in its case as your eyes meet her brown ones in the mirror.

“Not tonight, Alina, thank you,” you say and she nods, setting the glass bottle back down as she picks up some of the rose water, native to the North, and begins doting it across your neck, head and wrists.

There was a slight breeze that was wafting in through your open window. Fall was quickly approaching, but you were trying to hold on to the last bits of the cool summer air before the biting winds staked their spot until the next spring.

“Would you like me to close the window?” Alina glanced over to the rustling curtains, flowing freely, and you shrugged, taking off your earrings as you placed them down gently on the little plate Gojo had given you as a gift a while ago.

“I prefer the breeze,” you reply, wiping your face with a damp cloth, “Thank you, though,” you offer her a small smile, one that she reciprocates.

Alina finishes up some things, and the two of you work in comfortable silence. She knows just how much you need these little things to help keep you sane, and as much as she’s been trained to help out her lady in any means possible, as your friend, she lets you do some things alone.

After a few more minutes pass Alina clasps her hands on her hips, and you let out a small giggle, knowing she was done.

“I don’t see why you need me here,” she grumbles, pushing some hair away from her face and you snort, standing up from your chair as you flick her shoulder gently.

“You’re good company,” you simply say, moving around your room as you go to the little corner where you keep some of your books.

Alina pushes the chair back in and makes her way to the door, bidding you a good night before she pauses, looking back at the window.

“My lady?” She says, and you look up from the shelf, glancing over to her. You raise a brow, waiting for her to continue.

“I know it’s not my place, but my mother always told me to sleep with the windows closed. You never know how cold the night might get and I don’t want to see you waking up with a fever.”

You look back to the window and the rustling curtains and grin, nodding.

“I’ll close them in a bit,” you tell her and note how her shoulders ease and a smile makes its way onto her face.

“Goodnight my lady,” she tells you, and you say the same thing, making sure she’s all gone before you let the smile drop, your cheeks hurting, and look back to the bookshelf.

You’ve seen how worried she’s gotten as of late regarding your nature, so you’ve tried being a little more cheerful around her even if it pains your soul to act like nothings wrong.

Your fingers card through different books, reading the spines as you try to find something that might help put you to sleep. Finally you find a title of a book you’ve read before, maybe a few years ago, and pull it out, examining the cover.

You move around to your bed and place it near your pillow. You fill the glass on your stand with some water from your pitcher, setting down as you go to the vanity to blow out the candles that were lit.

There were only a few left, and you just wanted to save the one next to your bed so you could read. You move past the window, going to the corner of the room, blowing the third remaining candle out.

You feel the hair on your arm prick up from the sudden rush of cold air, goosebumps trailing in their wake, and you walk back to the window, pushing aside the long drapes as you reach your arms out to find the knobs that would pull them in towards you.

Until a sudden force knocks you down to the ground.

It takes you half a second to realize that you hadn’t tripped on something, and that the reason why your head didn’t hit the floor causing a thud to be heard was because something, somebody, was on top of you.

A man. There’s a man lying on top of you.

This can’t be happening.

You go to scream, but a hand flies to cover your mouth, pinning your legs and wrists down by a heavy leg and their other hand, effectively holding your writhing body still.

Your eyes are squeezed shut as you try to move, biting the hand that’s over your mouth but it doesn’t budge. You feel your heartbeat as fast as it ever has against your ribcage, your fingers trying to grab something, anything, that could help you.

“If you make any noise I’ll cut your tongue straight from your mouth, you hear me?”

Your eyes slam open, looking straight at the face hovering above yours.

A brute of a man is looking down at you. You yell again, but he presses his hand down even harder, his rough skin meeting your teeth as your voice becomes muffled.

He’s gigantic, looking more like an ogre than a man. His hooked nose and sly lips are pulled into a sleazy smile as he looks down at you, his greasy black hair pulled back behind his ears. His arms are the size of boulders, his legs looking like they were strong enough to push boulders. His teeth are yellow and crooked, and he lets you see them when he talks.

You feel something sharp press to your side, and in your frantic state you’re able to wiggle a little bit to tilt your head down to see what it is. Your eyes widen when you see the glimmering dagger, its edge serrated. Its tip was so sharp that you could feel it cutting into your skin and you knew he wasn’t pressing as hard as he possibly could.

“Stay. Still.” The man grunts again, licking his teeth as you shake, shaking your head as your hands open and unopened, not knowing what else to do.

“I’m going to move my hands from your mouth,” he says next, slowly and quietly, “There’s a couple things I need you to do for me. But I swear that if you make a single squeak, any fucking noise, I’ll gut you like a fish, hm?”

Your eyes are shaking, brows pulled taut as you try to move around but to no avail. The knee that was pressing down onto your thigh digs in deeper, his bone searing into your flesh as you whine in pain.

“Do you understand?” He whispers in your ear, his hot breath fanning over your skin. The knife is still pointed at your hip, and he presses it just a bit deeper, and you’re sure if he goes any more he’ll draw blood.

You look at the man, at the deep set scars that run all across his face. You take in the glint that shimmer in his eyes, the pure evil that drips from his grin. You can smell the blood drying on his clothes, and can almost taste iron the closer he gets to you.

You want to fight back, but you can’t.

Your mind races back to those days when you had asked Gojo to let you spar with him, wanting to know how to defend yourself. There were some moments when you felt like you could take him down, but he’d always find a weak spot of yours and bring you tum biking to the ground. But he would always help you up with a gentle smile, apologizing profusely as he kissed your cheeks. This man was far bigger than Gojo, and his smile wasn’t kind the way he was. You knew you couldn’t overpower him, not in the slightest.

So you slowly nod, your tears falling freely from the corners of your eyes, rolling back onto the floors as the man grunts.

Slowly and surely, he moves his hand away from your face, still keeping the rest of his body pinning yours. Your lips are trembling, your body almost convulsing as you wait for him to speak.

He gives it a second, making sure you weren’t going to pull anything before he decides you’re compliant enough, or rather not willing to die, to listen to his orders.

“Good job,” he mutters, his voice pricking at your skin like a thousand needles, his greasy smile making you want to hurl, “There’s three things I need you to do. Nod if you understand.”

You look back at him. He presses the knife into your hip, and your teeth dig into your lip, knowing that he for sure broke skin.

Your eyes squeeze shut in pain as you slowly nod.

“First, from here on out, be as quiet,” his voice is low, “Don’t let anybody outside think anything.”

He pushes himself slightly off of you, trying to get a feel of how loud the floorboards creaked. When he was satisfied that they wouldn’t make a sound, he moved his hulking body away from yours, carefully standing up.

You feel your heart lurch when you see him at his true size, nearly three heads taller than Gojo, and even more packed with muscles.

“Stand up,” he motions for you to do the same, not until he warns, “Slowly.”

You’re frozen in place, your arms and legs losing all function. The man looks down at you through his dark stare, seeing that it’s taking you too long, and bends down to loop a hand around your elbow.

He drags up upwards like you weigh nothing, your lungs refusing to work as you gasp for air.

When you're on your feet, you feel like throwing up, your head dizzy, nose wrinkling at his strong odor that reeks of onions and ale.

“Walk over to that table,” he nudges his chin over to the desk that is littered with Gojo’s maps and scrolls and your books, “And sit down at the chair.”

You can only stare at him, biting your tongue, hoping this was all a nightmare.

But the man just stares back at you, waiting. He flashes you the dagger again, it’s too stained with your blood, and your legs, however weak, seem to work faster than your mind. You feel like a newborn lamb learning how to walk as you somehow make your way over to the table, his presence never leaving from behind your back.

Your legs shake as you set yourself down on the wooden chair, tears biting at your cheeks as you wait for his next instructions.

Behind you, you hear something rustle. You don’t want to look to see what he’s doing, but you’re able to pick out a bag being opened carefully, some papers scratching against each other.

It takes a few more seconds but the sounds stop, and suddenly a piece of parchment falls down next to you.

“Write down on a piece of sheet that repeats what is written there,” he tells you, and your eyes dart down to the parchment, tears blurring your vision.

“W…” your words are slurring together, and you can’t hear your own voice, “What?”

You’re quiet, but the man hears you.

He just shoves the parchment closer to your face, saying nothing.

Your eyes fall down to the words scattered across the price, black ink staining its yellow color, and you blink your eyes a couple of times to read what it says. The handwriting is foreign to you, something you can’t recognize. You don’t know how, with everything your mind was going through, you were able to read properly, but you felt your stomach drop when your eyes scanned through the first couple of sentences.

My love, with a heavy heart I write to you, but there is no other way to break my thoughts to you. I can no longer sit and watch what you plan to do in my name…your eyes skim a further but down, the blood you’re willing to spill is unlike what I thought you to be capable of. You’ve become cruel and inhuman, and I refuse to have myself tied to a man that desires death the way you do…

Your mouth drops a little, your jaw slacking when you realize what the note was saying. This was a goodbye letter.

I have to leave. I could never, under any gods’ sky, pretend to keep loving a man as barbarous as you.

Your heart stops.

“Write that down girl,” the man’s gruff voice interrupts, “Here.”

He scavenged through the piles of discarded plans and strategies, finding a clean sheet of parchment that was untouched by ink.

You shake your head, looking over your shoulder as your tears drop from your chin.

“I,” you swallow thickly, trying to force down the vomit that was at the back of your throat, “I can’t…write…”

The man snorts, his arms crossing over his large chest as he shrugs.

“If you don’t write, I’ll gut that girl that you favor so much,” he twists the daggers handle in his large palm, “The only with the curls. Gods, it’d be a shame though. I might have a taste of her before…”

You tune him out, ears filling with water as you realize he’s talking about Alina, your fingers trembling against the wood of the table as you look down at the pre-written note and the blank parchment he had set in front of you.

Your mind was blanking as you try to ration what’s happening.

You look a little bit to your left at the pot of ink and the quill Gojo was always scratching away with. Before you can think any other thought, you feel cool metal pressing against your neck.

The man is right behind your chair, his daggers blade a breath away from your skin. He’s holding your jaw in place, forcing your head down at the table.

His fingers are rough and calloused, stained with blood and dirt, and you gasp slightly, eyes blurring once again as you turn still.

“Write.” He whispers thickly in your ear.

You don’t move, and the dagger presses down, your lips falling open in a silent cry as you feel it cut through some skin, blood beginning to stain your nightdress.

Mindlessly, your hand moves to the ink and quill. You feel like you've left your body as your fingers grasp the quill, dipping it into the little pot, and set it down to the paper.

You feel like you’ve left your own self as you look back to the note, chewing your lips raw as you write down the first word. The dagger is still against your throat, unrelenting as you begin to write. You don’t know how none of your tears have yet to stain the paper, but you don’t what the stranger would do if that were to happen.

A part of you blacks out when you write, your eyes open but not understanding anything in front of you no matter how hard you try.

Your quill suddenly stops, and you feel the man leaning in behind your shoulder, the dagger loosening away from you as he lifts the two pieces of parchment up.

You don’t know when you finished, or what you write, but in the silence that it takes for him to read yours through, you get the grasp that you must’ve done something correctly because he seems satisfied, setting your version down on the table.

He steps away from you, and you watch from the corner of your eyes as he takes the original piece to one of your candles, holding it over the flames as it catches fire. He watches as it burns, the ashes falling into his other hand. When it’s all burnt up, he scatters it out the window, the wind doing its job as it takes any remains of what it was away from here.

He looks back at you with a smile.

“Last thing,”

Your head sways.

“Fill this bag,” he holds up an empty satchel, “Fill it with things you’d take if you were to run away.”

You blink slowly at him, your mouth going dry.

You can’t speak, but he can tell you’re confused.

“We need to make it seem like, well,” he shrugs, his lips pursed together, “That you wrote that note and ran away. Pick out some clothes, jewelry, and coins. Make the room messy.”

Your heart beats slowly in your chest when you start to understand what it was he was asking you to do.

He holds up his weapon, its edges shining red with your blood, and he points it to the door.

“I know you’d hate to hear her scream,” he says, and you dimly nod.

You set the quill down gently on the table, moving carefully from your chair as you walk towards his outstretched hand. Your fingers tremble as you take it from him, walking slowly towards your dresser.

He’s right behind you, the knife pointed at your waist so that you don’t think of doing anything, and you quietly open the door, grabbing some hoods, slips, common clothes, nightwear and undergarments. You shoved it in until the bag was nearly full.

You did as you were told, taking the rest of your clothes and scattered it across the ground, throwing some things onto your bed.

He grunted behind you, most likely a little surprised with how compliant you were.

You drift to your vanity, shoving some necklaces and earrings in the satchel, not wanting to take all because it was actively killing you to do this.

“That’s good,” the man says after a couple minutes and you pause, your back still to him.

You set the satchel down and turn slowly around, hoping this would be enough. That your night was done and that he would let you go.

“Oh, and,” his eyes drop down to your empty hands, pouting the tip of the blade to your finger, “Leave the ring.”

Your eyesight goes blurry.

You feel lightheaded, gripping into the edge of the table as you heave for air. Leave the ring? Leave? Leave?

“We don’t have all night,” he explains, making that his reasoning for why he so suddenly takes your hand, his large fingers circling around yours as he roughly yanks off the piece of jewelry, throwing it next to some other pieces you had lying on the table.

You can only stare blankly at it as he moves around, stare as the gold glimmers in the soft candlelight. It looks the same way it did the first time you saw it, when Gojo had placed it on your finger when he was saying your vows. It was a simple ring, a gold band that didn’t have any stones on it. Gojo later explained that while he had told you earlier it was usual something he had picked out, his mother had gifted it to him.

You feel a force hit the back of your head and suddenly, everything goes black.

—-

Waking up hurt.

You blink once, twice and then for a final time before you feel like you can see accurately again. Your head was throbbing, a dull pain at the back of your skull. You go to rub it, but notice that your hands are bound together by rope.

Coming to your senses you realize that the rope wasn’t the only problem. The wobbling motion you first had wasn’t from your stomach ache, but because you were rocking back and forth on a horse.

You sit up a little bit in shock, but the motion causes you to wince, your body sore and aching.

“I wouldn’t move if I were you.”

That voice.

So it wasn’t a nightmare.

The wall that you felt behind your back wasn’t a wall, but was in fact the same man who had forced his way into your room at night, made you write that letter, packed your things and leave…

Leave home.

All around you was a sprawling field, no sign of life from as far as you could tell. You had no idea how long you were unconscious, or how long you had been on horseback, but the North usually didn’t get grass to grow this tall seeing how the cold winters usually killed them. There was a breeze, but it wasn’t as biting as it should be.

You were glad to see that your mouth was wrapped shut, but that also put a strike of fear through you. If the man wasn’t afraid of you screaming, then there surely wouldn’t be anybody around to save you.

You were alone.

A part of you was on the verge of breaking down, screaming until you coughed up blood and your throat became raw. But you knew that if you wanted to stay alive, if you wanted to go come, you had to keep onto your wits. It was either that or you froze, not moving, becoming a shell of a human, the same way you were that night when this all happened. And you had seen what it could do, had seen how your own body would betray you, and you vowed to never let that happen again.

“How long has it been?”

Your own voice shocks you. Your throat is dry, seeing how you haven’t opened it in a while, and the sentence comes out like a croak. You swallow some spit, hoping it would help with the scratchiness you were feeling. The horse moved slowly through the pasture, the sun shining but not beating down on your face in an unforgivable way.

The man clicked his tongue against his teeth, his hands holding onto the reins.

“Nearly six days,” he says gruffly, and your eyes widen, not expecting for it to have been almost a week that you’d been out, “Thought I’d killed you.”

Five days?

You try to do the math in your head. It had been almost six days since Gojo had left when the man came into your room, and with these five days, it would be almost a week since Gojo was gone from home. If the travel West took as long as it did for you, then he’d be almost there by now. But you didn’t know how mail would travel, or how long it would take till he’d come back home to figure out what the problem was.

Depending on which direction the man was going, it could take weeks until they found you. Fields like this weren’t uncommon in the North, but the weather wasn’t. It reminded you a bit of home, but Western nature was dry and glaringly hot. Even in the fall, you’d still break a sweat after being in the sun.

And given how prepared this man was, he surely wouldn't be heading there, most likely knowing that Gojo was there as well. You had seen enough maps and heard enough talk around the counsel to know that it would take almost two weeks to travel Westward, but almost three weeks to arrive in the Eastern nations.

Judging by the landscape you had seen on paper and that you’re surveying now, this man was taking you somewhere East.

“Did the king send you?” You ask, your head dipping downwards so that you could angle your ears to hear him better.

He pauses, and you wonder if you’d asked the wrong question, if he was going to make you suffer in some way for crossing the line. You still couldn't work out his motive. If he was truly sent by the king, then why wouldn’t he have killed you in your room? Why go through the hassle of making you seem like you had run away?

Killing you and showing the North your body would send a greater message than whatever this was. Taking you without making it seem like an abduction was strange, even for the South, and so you desperately wanted to know what it was that had put you in this situation.

“A friend of his did,” the man finally says, and when he falls quiet, you realize that this was all he was going to say.

So he was from the South. And he didn’t seem like he’d be a lying man, he’d have no reason for it. The more you thought about it, it made more sense that the king didn’t send direct orders to abduct you. But that made you furrow your brows in confusion. If the king was ready to wage war, why would an abduction be something he wanted hidden?

“Why didn’t you kill me?” you ask after a beat of silence, your body swaying in tandem with the horse. You could feel your dried tears crusting near your eyes, your lips battered, iron coating your tongue the more you spoke, causing the wound to open up.

“I will, but not here.”

You bite your cheek, your hands shaking.

“Will you take me up to your king to make a spectacle out of me?” You try to keep your voice from wavering, from showing him any signs of fear.

The man chuckles, spitting to the road.

“I’ll kill you somewhere where there’s a lot of trees, hide your body so that nobody can find it,” he explains, and you feel your heartbeat in the palms of your hands, “Make it seem like you ran away.”

You try not to let your lips tremble, instead, you try to piece the clues he was giving you together. If the king truly wanted to make it seem like you were running away, then it means that he would want your spot as Lady of the North to appear vacant. He would want Gojo to think that you didn’t care for him anymore, and that you wanted out of this marriage, which would make room for…

His daughter.

But if the king wanted his daughter to marry into the Gojo family, you wonder why he didn’t do this whole abduction in the first place. You sigh deeply through your nose, looking down at your hands, your fingers moving around slightly but to no avail. While you’re trying to see if there was any wiggle room, a thought runs through your head.

The king wasn’t expecting this…

You wonder if perhaps the king promised war in a way of bluffing, or hoping that Gojo would terminate the marriage and take on the princess to avoid any trouble. This wasn’t his first plan, you decide, but him trying to save the skin of his teeth. He wasn’t expecting the North to retaliate, to declare a war of their own. He didn’t see Gojo carrying this much for his arranged bride, and didn't think that the young lord would rather die than marry another woman. But the king underestimated Gojo, and sent this man to answer for his mistake.

If it seemed like you found Gojo repulsive, that you no longer loved him, then he could search all he wanted to, but if he never found you, or your body, then he would come to the eventual conclusion that you had run away. Either way, this would make it so that he would call off the war. Maybe in attempts to fix the now shattered relationship between the two nations, a marriage between Gojo and the princess might actually take place.

Your hopes deflate, knowing the letter you were forced to write might also be more realistic than some Southern scribes realized. With the way you had argued countless times with Gojo over the chance of ending the possibilities of war, he might read it as an actual goodbye.

The thought makes you sick.

So, you decide to busy yourself with trying to find an escape option.

Your wrists were chafing with how tightly the rope was tied, but the knot around it was tied in a way that seems to have shifted in the days you had been riding. The man behind you is tall, but sitting down, he can only see above your head, and he’d have to force himself up to peer down at your lap.

Slowly, over the span of a few minutes, you’re able to position the rope closer to the bottom of your palm, your thumb and pointer finger reaching for the knot. A small smile graces your face when you're able to pinch it between the two fingers.

You stop your movements, not wanting to make anything obvious, and then start back up after a couple minutes of silence passed.

With the knot now closer to your finger, you begin picking at it with your nail. You know your nail is dull and cut through it, but you think that if you nudge at it enough, you might be able to create a small opening that would allow you to slip your pointer finger through it and unravel it.

“I think it would be fair to share your name,” you say, not wanting the man to think anything of your silence, and you begin to execute your plan, fiddling away with the rope with your finger as you raise your head up, not wanting to keep your stare directed at your lap, looking ahead at the field.

Wind blows through your body, ruffling the nightdress that you were still wearing. The man at least had some decency to put a cloak over you, hiding your body from being entirely bare. The more you looked at the field, the more it reminded you of the one that surrounded the Gojo estate. You blink and see him sitting there, his back on the grass, an arm resting behind his head, his white hair sprawled out as he held you close to his chest, telling you stories from his childhood. You blink again and see nightfall, see him with his tunic off, telling you about the scar on his torso. You see him professing his feelings, telling you how much he loved you. You blink again and see the field, your nose twitching slightly.

“My name?” The man repeats with a slight chuckle, most likely shaking his head in disbelief. Out of all the people he’s taken, out of all of the people he’s been sent out to kill, you’ve been the weirdest behaving out of all of them.

You nod, your finger working away at the knot, and you cough to cover up the noise when you make a particularly loud scratch.

“My name changes based on the man who hires me,” he says after a minute, and you almost want to look back at him in confusion.

“What was the name you gave to the employer who sent you out to find me?” You ask, trying to wiggle some fingers around, bracing your thighs around the horse, trying to keep yourself balanced and upright.

The man breathes deeply through his nose, as if he was contemplating telling you. There’s no reason not to tell you, if his plan is to kill you anyways. But you plan to escape, and you want to know the name of the man who put you through this hell.

“Toji,” he finally says, and you commit it to memory, your mouth falling in the shape of the name, “But I’ll change it for my next employer.”

You go to say something else, but almost let your disguise slip when you feel your finger make its way through the knot. You move it in circles, moving it across, and slowly you feel the knot begin to unravel. You keep your hands pressed tightly together, but in a few seconds the rope has become undone.

You stare at it in shock, not expecting for it to take so little time to unravel, but you look ahead again, shifting a little bit as you begin to think about what to do next.

You can feel the sheath of his dagger digging into your back. You remember how it looked when you first saw it, and can confidently say that this was the thing that was there. It was large, but given how large his weapon was, you weren’t surprised to find it had an even larger cover.

You didn’t know how fast you could move, nor how fast he could. You didn’t know if there was a latch or specific way to take the weapon out, but as far as you could remember, that was the only weapon he seemed to operate with. If you were able to harm him in some way and get him off of the horse, you might have a chance of escaping.

Though there was the obvious challenge, he knew how to fight far better than you. What’s to say that you get the dagger but he doesn’t get it out of your hands even faster? And if you did manage to wield it, how fast would it take for him to understand what had happened, how fast his reflexes were? If he’s had multiple employers before, then he must be skilled in his trade, putting you at an immense disadvantage.

But you knew that if you didn’t try, you’d die at his hands. You knew you’d rather die fighting and on your own accord than at the merciless dagger of a stranger who was paid to kill you.

You let the silence grow, wanting the man to think that you had fallen asleep. You let your head hang down, your chin to your chest, and you slowly, quietly and gently begin the snake one hand out from the ropes.

The man grumbles to himself from time to time, spitting to the side every now and then, but from what you can tell, is still unsuspecting.

You know it’s a matter of seconds that gives you the advantage, and that any slight fumble or mistake will be catastrophic. You tell yourself that you have to twist your back quickly, pull the weapon out with your right hand, and strike him through the chest. You don’t know if one strike would be enough to take him down, but it would be enough to have you force him off the horse and take the animal for yourself.

You breathe deeply through your nose, calming your nerves.

And then, you turn.

You’re met with his face, your hand reaching for the weapon, and see the way his eyes slowly fall down to your fingers, and then to you, but you’ve calculated his brutish daftness enough to know that a moment of surprise would be his doom.

It doesn’t take much effort to get the dagger, but his hand quickly shoots for your throat, his fingers wrapping around your skin as he squeezes tight, restricting your airways. You choke, trying to cough, but with the way he’s seated on the horse you know you can’t falter. Your hold on the weapon weakens, but you still drive it forward, and are met with the satisfying sound of his groan.

His hand around your throat falls, and you pull out the dagger only to drive it further up his chest, into his ribs.

The man, Toji, grips the handle, but you push with as much force as you can muster at his shoulders. You wonder if he’s ever had people fight back, if he’s ever dealt with somebody striking him hard enough to draw blood.

With the way you’re positioned; your dress and robe still underneath him, he takes you down with him. You fall to the ground with a hard thud, wincing at the pain that shoots again through your head. Your vision has gone blurry again, but you can make out the man stumbling on the ground, grasping at his chest in shock.

You place your hands on the ground, forcing yourself up. Your head is spinning, swaying up and down, but you know you have to get back up on that horse.

He’s shouting at you, saying something but you stand up, almost falling back down with how your legs are shaking, but you hold yourself upright by the horse's saddle. You’re shocked that it hasn’t been spooked away, but don’t find time to question why.

You’ve ridden enough times before to know how to haul yourself up, but it’s a trying effort that takes a couple swings. The man is still on the ground, clutching at his wounds, and you can’t revel in your victory just yet.

When you’re up on the horse you feel your vision start to clear up a bit and your ears stop ringing.

You look down to the man, trying to make out what it was he was saying.

“...can’t go back,” he spits, blood coating his lips, staining them red as he coughs out more, “they’d never take you back.”

You stare at him, dazed.

“You committed treason,” his voice is hoarse, and he tries to grab at your foot but you kick it away, “That letter? Don’t you remember?” he smiles darkly, and his teeth as red, “And if you go back, the king,” he chokes, spitting out some blood, but he chuckles, a mad look in his eyes, “The king would kill every single person you care about. He’ll rip the throats from your maids, send an army of unkillable men to kill y-your dear lord.”

You look down, his words slowly making their way into your brain.

The letter.

You remember now. It wasn’t just a goodbye, but a confession of even further betrayal. You had denounced the North and its power, had said that the Lord of the North was an enemy of every state.

And even if you did go back to prove that you were forced to write it, what’s to say that his words weren’t correct? If he was able to spy on you long enough to know your schedule, your maids, when to attack, then the South was truly capable of sending in more assassins. And Gojo might be able to take them, but what about Alina? What if the king decided to target Gojo’s parents, your friends, people you’ve come to care deeply about?

The man grins cruelly when he sees the way you begin to understand his words, the threat behind them.

The man wasn’t standing up not because he was weakened, but because he knew that even if he didn’t kill you, you’d wind up dead anyways. He knew you’d give up and let him go through with his initial plan. Because in that case, only you’d be dead. But you returned back to the Gojo estate and would have you killed, alongside everyone else you loved.

But…but if you ran, ran away to somewhere hidden, it might be avoided. The war, the bloodshed, everything. You could actually be doing something good.

He laughs, blood falling from his lips, staining the floor when he sees the tears fall down your cheeks. You go to wipe them away, but it doesn’t matter anymore. In that moment you’ve made up your mind, have seen that there was no other way.

You’d be leaving behind the man you loved in return for saving his life, as well as everyone else's.

You think about his smile, the way his lips felt against your skin when he kissed you goodbye. You think about the way he laughs, a hearty sound that makes you laugh in turn. You think about the warmth you felt when wrapped in his embrace, the way he smelled like cinnamon after spending time with you in the kitchens. Your heart churns when you think about the love you hold for him, just how much it drived your everyday life. How you’d do anything to save him, even if it wasn’t a lot. You think about Gojo, and how for a little moment in time, you truly had the world in your hands. How he would do the same if the roles were reversed, knowing that the way you feel for him is just as intense as how much he feels for you.

And you finally think about how leaving might preserve those little things, even if not for your experience. If you were to disappear, this might all be forgiven. And that was a price you decided there that you had to pay.

You turn away from him, and maybe under different circumstances you might have gloated at the confusion that takes over his face, not knowing why you weren’t stepping down.

With shaking fingers and a shattering heart you look ahead, kicking the side of the horse as you send it running. You could hear his yells from behind you, calling for you to come back, but you kept repeating in your head that this was the only way.

Your eyes were blurring with tears from just how fast the wind was hitting your face, your cheeks and nose growing cold. You leaned forward, holding onto the reins with all the strength you had.

Please forgive me Satoru, your mind begged, please forgive me.

—

“Miss?”

You dream of a sound, a soft, gentle sound. It circles around you like a mothers tender care, making the coldest parts of your soul warm slightly. You smile a little bit when you imagine it again.

“Miss?”

A shower of icy water, colder than anything you’ve ever felt, washes over you, and your eyes sprout wide open, your mouth open in a loud gasp as you sit up as fast as you can, your chest heaving up and down with labored breaths. Your fingers jump to your face, trying to wipe off the freezing feeling away, and blink rapidly, trying to get a grasp of where you were.

“Miss?”

Your head swivels to the voice, and you feel your eyes burning. The voice is overshadowed with the burning sun behind them, but they crouch down over you, shoving you with a little force. You blink again, trying to make the spots go away.

A woman, you think. Not Gojo.

The last thing you remember was going to sleep, your stomach empty after multiple days of night finding any food, shivering your soul away as you curled up. The horse that you had stolen was set free a couple days ago after you felt bad for not being able to provide anything for it to eat or drink. Knowing that it had left somewhere for itself puts you in a better state of mind.

You couldn’t remember how many days it had been since you had run away. You lost track after the twentieth night. You had no map to guide you, nobody you trusted to tell you where to go. You walked around with a hood over your head, looking through different towns and villages, scrapping around for their garbage. You were running both from the man that had been sent to kill you, but your old life as well. You didn’t know if Gojo believed the letter, if he had sent people out to look for you. You knew you just had to get as far away from the North as possible, even if it meant you die trying.

After a few days of doing this, your feet had given out, marked with blisters and scraps, and you fell in your spot, sleeping near a tree as you let the exhaustion finally settle deep in your bones. You remember closing your eyes, thinking of the time when Gojo woke you up with sweets from the bakery you adored. You could smell the sugar beneath your nose, your fingers itching to grab one, your mind not able to tell what was imagination and reality anymore. You would wager that hunger was making you do this, but you couldn’t care anymore.

You can only look at her, forgetting the words needed to form a proper sentence.

“Are ‘ye alright?” She asks you finally, and you can slowly begin to make out the crease in her face and the color of her eyes. You can see the wrinkles that adorn her forehead and cheeks, all scrunched up together in worry as she looks down at you.

Your hands pat themselves across your body, trying to make sure you weren’t dead. It had been a while since you had spoken to someone, especially when they weren’t throwing sticks at your head to get you to stop looking through their discarded piles of vegetables.

You swallow thickly.

“Can ‘ye hear me?” She asks louder, bending down a little closer to you as she rests her hand on your forehead.

She doesn’t seem too old, most likely a few years older than your father, but you feel stricken by her appearance. A part of you wonders if you truly have died and this was the afterlife; an old lady taking care of you.

But with how hard she’s jamming her finger into your ribs it makes you think otherwise.

“Are ‘ye hungry darling?” She continues to talk, her gray brows pinching together as she glances over your frail appearance, “Would ‘ye like something to eat?”

Your eyes widen slightly and she takes note of it.

A small smile makes its way onto her face as she eases back upwards.

“My husband and I own a small tavern,” she says, and with the sun framing her head she looks like a divine power, “I’ll take ‘ye there.”

You stare at her outstretched hand, look at her fingers, at the way they’re reaching out to you. You can’t remember the last time somebody offered you help, or looked at you like you were more than a common thief. You’d cry if there was any water left in your system.

But slowly you raise your hand, holding hers as she heaves you up. You show her your feet, and she tells you not to worry. She sits you on the back of her donkey, telling you that the animal looks stronger than you’d think.

You don’t have any will to argue, letting the old woman, who told you to call her Miss Murray, guide you and the donkey through a dirt road. You sway in and out of consciousness, blinking to find the scenery changed from what you last remembered.

Miss Murray talks to you, but you don't have any energy to respond. She checks behind her shoulder sometimes to make sure you were still alive, and would only look back to the road when she was satisfied you were.

It takes nearly another thirty minutes before you start seeing little homes begin to appear from over the hill. There’s a town in the distance, one that you see is bordering a vast blue ground.

The ocean?

You blink to make sure you were hallucinating.

You were only aware of larger cities that bordered the ocean, but this was a small little town at most. The roads were dirt and unpaved, the homes made of wood and layers of hay. The cities you were aware of were far richer, their structures made of sturdy stone and glass. And you knew that despite your delirious travels, you hadn’t rerouted and gone back up North, the only other place you knew that had cities near the water.

“Home,” Miss Murray says with a content sigh and you look at her, your eyes slightly squinted in confusion.

You swallow some spit, trying to wet your mouth.

“Where,” your voice sounds foreign to you, and even the woman looks back in surprise when she hears you trying to speak. Your fingers are at your throat, wanting to have your voice sound normal.

“Where a-are we?” You finally get out, and the woman smiles gently at you.

“As far east as ‘ye can get,” she replies and you look back to the ocean. The water is shining off of the sun, the cold air that’s biting at your skin is a reminder of the winter that’s about to come.

The color reminds you of a pair of eyes, the same eyes you often thought about before you went to sleep, not knowing if you’d wake up.

“I’d wager yer a far way from home dear, no?”

Your body sways with the donkey's gentle movements, and your mind is slow. You know you need food and water, but her question isn’t one that reminds you of this. It’s a cut that runs deep through your aching soul, one that hurts to admit.

So you only give her a little nod, one that she seems to understand quickly.

“D‘ye plan to stay here?” Her gray curls frame her face in a nice way, her plump cheeks pink and soft.

You look to the water and then to the town. It’s a far distance from the North, and hidden enough that nobody would recognize you or find you. It’s surrounded by a forest, a densely thick mass of trees that stretches as far as the eye can see. The town is quaint, at most a few hundred people inhabiting it. Even if the news of your runaway had heard their ears, it was doubtful that they’d recognize you. Especially now, that even without a proper mirror you’re sure your appearance has changed drastically.

“Yes,” you mutter, your throat raw and unused.

She hums, pulling you carefully down the grassy hill and closer towards the busting town. People were walking and shouting to one another, carrying trays of breads and pastries, flowers and fabrics from one place to the next.

“I’ll fix ‘ye up something to eat when we get to the tavern,” she promises, having surely heard your eager stomach, but you shake your head slowly in a form of protest.

“No, no coin,” you tell her, your eyes falling down in embarrassment, “I don’t have…any coin,” you say slowly, your tongue heavy in your mouth.

Miss Murray looks at you for a second before throwing her head back and laughing.

“Dear, I’m sure ‘ye need that food more than I need that coin.”

Your heart beats a little faster, your eyes glimmering slightly.

You want to tell her why you’re like this, that you weren’t this way a few months ago. That you had a husband who you cared very deeply for, people who you loved helping. You want to tell her that you would give her all the coins you and your name if you could, but you bite your tongue from doing so.

You no longer were the Lady of the North. You were married to Gojo Satoru, and you had no title, no coin, no amount to your name. But you still had respect and dignity, knowing you couldn’t lose every shred of yourself while trying to stay alive.

“I’d like t-to…pay you back,” you stammer out, “I want to pay you back, please,”

You watch as Miss Murray pauses, the donkey halting its movements as your body lurches forward slightly.

You watch silently as she observes your face, looks at the cracks in your skin, the stained clothes you were wearing, and your lack of proper hygiene. She feels something when looking at you, something that wasn’t right. There’s a certain stubbornness, a fight in your eyes, one that somebody only gets after surviving for so long.

She knows you won’t back down, especially after you’ve had something proper to eat.

“‘Ye need a job, no? Some coin?” She finally asks, and you look down at your torn up clothes and your bones fingers.

You look back up to her and nod.

She thinks for another moment before starting her walk again.

“‘Ye can pay me back by working for the tavern,” her fingers curl around the donkey's rein as she controls it through a winding road, “Aye, we’re in constant need of firewood. It will make us even for this meal, and every day after that I’ll pay ‘ye for yer help. Deal?”

You feel a little light shine down, maybe from the gods as she turns her head to look at you, raising a brow as she waits for your answer.

For the first time in a while, you feel your lips quirk upwards, a small, miniscule grin on your face. Miss Murray smiles at the sight.

You nod slightly before you murmur a quiet, “deal.”

——

Miss Murray took you to her tavern and fixed you a large meal, something even your old self would gawk at if served at the estate.

And she introduced you to her husband, the other keeper. She told him that she found you and knew you were willing to work, to which he took one look at you and decided she wasn’t going to budge on her decision.

The old man showed you after a week of rest what it was you had to do. He demonstrated how to use an axe, how to cut up the logs in a way that would fit into the tavern's fireplace. He showed you which trees would be easiest for you to cut down, and which ones to avoid.

The old man told you that his previous lumberjack had left town in search of a new life, and with how strenuous the job was, he couldn’t find anybody to do it eagerly in the short amount of time he needed. His son, who you slowly became familiar with, would do a majority of the workload, meaning you’d just have to bring in the smaller branches and twigs that kept the fire going throughout the night.

Miss Murray also showed you an old shack they had been using to store some equipment, saying that you could stay here for as long as you liked as long as you cleaned it out yourself. It was a little way away from the tavern, but still close enough that you wouldn’t have to drag the logs for a great distance. You were near trees and a few homes scattered around you as well so that you weren’t isolated. She told you she would’ve given you someplace nicer, but this was all she had.

It takes a while for this strange new routine to become normal for you, but you quickly decide that chopping wood and lugging it around beats the hunger and cold you felt for weeks before you found this little town. That the motions almost became therapeutic, and offered you a peace of mind, letting yourself try to forget about your previous life, your husband, Gojo, and focus on getting your job done.

You get the old shack as clean as you can, pleasantly surprised to find that underneath all the rubble and blankets there was a fireplace with a chimney still intact. You set a little bed up for yourself in the corner on the floor, made out of multiple sheets all piled on top of each other (all borrowed from Miss Murray) and a pillow that she had given you.

You never told Miss Murray of where you were running from, who you were running from. You didn’t tell her that you were married or that you were from the North. Though she asked about why you ran, you never gave her a clear answer. It hurt thinking about him, let alone voicing the fact that you had left a loving husband in hopes of sparing thousands of people their lives. Some days, the pain was so numbing that you didn’t know how to move. You would hear his voice in your thoughts, could see his smile when you closed your eyes. In these moments you wondered if he misses you as much as you missed him. If he still slept in the same bed, or had his room completely changed. Did he get rid of your books, your oils, your clothing? A part of you hopes he did, hoping that he didn’t have to be cursed with the memory of you after what you had done. The more time passed, you wondered if he had decided to forget about you, if the thought of you was something he decided was better hidden rather than called upon.

Slowly, you began to turn the shack into your home, delivering the firewood as your daily routine, and made the town that bordered the ocean somewhere that you considered safe.

But each night that passed and you went to sleep you dreamt of your old home, your old bed, the strong arms that wrapped around you, and you woke up, pretending the tears that had drenched your pillow weren’t there.

Though you knew that after a while, when the talks of the Northern soldiers died down, that you had to move on. And when Miss Murray excitedly knocked on your door, a month later, telling you that the war had been called off, you offered her a gentle smile, knowing that you had done the right thing. She showed you the papers that were making their way across the kingdoms, the ones that said the North had agreed to pull their forces out from near the Southern border, releasing their final statement of neutrality. You skimmed the page, your heart hammering when you read that The North credits their Lord for the sudden decision, claiming that after months of searching for his missing wife with no luck, he agreed that continuing war efforts were barbarous and unnecessary.

Your vision goes blurry for a moment.

He had been searching for you? For nearly six months?

It had been almost half a year, if you had done the math correctly, since you were first informed that a war would be happening. Six months of hardship, pain, tears, blood and half of your soul to end it all. Nobody in your little town knew of what you did, and you knew to keep it that way. Hiding your true nature was safe, no matter how much it stung when you realized that the North had most likely decided to forget you. That night you stayed in your little cabin while everybody was in the square celebrating and crying, not knowing what else to do. They were partially tears of joy, but mainly an accumulation of guilt and longing, wondering why your absence was what was needed to end a war.

Slowly, that pain began to seep into your bones, but you knew that you must go on with your life if you ever wanted to make it worth it. The days and nights turned into weeks, which then turned into months, and after some time, you no longer considered yourself the old Lady of the North. You melted into this life, and pretended that this was what you were destined to live from the start. You cut wood, collected pieces of dry bush and twigs to help keep the fire going at Miss Murray’s tavern. On the days when they didn’t need any fire wood, you helped her and her husband out with food and serving drinks. When she wasn’t busy, you found yourself listening to her talk, filling your silent moments with the gentle-hearted lady.

When a year had passed since you came to this town, you let yourself forget about everything. Everything your mind began to tuck away, all but for the lingering ache that longed for the man you loved so many moons ago.

—

Winters in a town near the ocean was something you never experienced until last year, and this year you knew how to prepare yourself.

The North was notoriously known for its freezing winters, but this town could rival it, you’d wager coin on this fact. The lakes in the woods nearby would freeze, snow piling on the ground, reaching a little bit below your knees in some areas. The ground was sometimes slick with ice, and if you didn’t have a careful eye to catch it you’d often come tumbling down, your cheeks heating in embarrassment when people nearby would laugh.

Last winter you had barely gotten on your own two feet before it had hit, but Miss Murray helped you out as much as she could. She spared some meat cakes from the tavern, bringing you what was left of their bread when the night was over. She lended you some of her old winter clothes, ones that she had outgrown, and you took it appreciatively. There were some nights you were sure you’d freeze to death, and other mornings when you weren’t sure you weren’t going to wake up. But you reminded yourself of all that you had been through, everything that you had survived, and pushed to open your eyes. So, in these past months, much like others in the town did, you prepared for this icy season, knowing this year you had to learn on your own.

You stocked up on breads and pastries in a corner of your home which was always keen on never staying warm. You kept jars of jams, pickled vegetables and potatoes near the breads, somewhere dark and away from the morning sun. You learned from other townspeople how to prepare for when the cold settled in your home, how to fight it off late into the night. You watched the baker as he explained how to keep your bread from going bad, and how to store it properly. When you were content with the amount of food you had accumulated over the summer and fall months, you then prepared your clothing.

You had learned over trial and error to begin with wrapping your hands up once with some gauze (this would also prove to help once you were using the axe and looking through the shrubbery for things that could easily burn, seeing that it provided a buffer zone) and a thick pair of gloves that Miss Murray knit for you. You always had a fire running in your own fireplace, tending to it from the moment you woke up till late in the night when you went to sleep. The tavern needed its delivery each night, so until then, when you weren’t chopping, you either bundled up with a couple blankets or walked through the town, looking through the bakery and small bookshop (those two stores always were toastier than the rest).

If you had some spare change you’d buy a couple of loaves of bread and see if there were any old books the bookkeeper was going to throw out, and in between your free time, this seemed to be the best way to go about the freezing months instead of wasting away in your little cabin.

When night came, you hauled the wood, leaves and twigs into the wheelbarrow Miss Murray had lended to you and headed for the tavern, making sure your scarf was tied around your neck multiple times before you left the warm retrieve of your home.

It was only a ten minute walk from where you were to the inn, and if you hurried enough you could finish it in almost eight minutes. The colder it got, the slower your joints would work, but you also reminded yourself that the faster you got there, the faster you’d be met with the tavern's overwhelming and comforting warmth. You had the hood of your cloak around your head, keeping your ears from freezing and your scarf wrapped tightly around your neck. It was hard pushing the handcart through the snow, but you had learned where to go over the past weeks, which roads were more forgiving.

It had become clockwork as you neared the oak doors, the windows lit orange from the amount of candles inside. You could smell the meat roasting and see the smoke from the brick chimney as you neared it. You were already hearing the loud boisterous laughter from inside, some from town natives, some from travelers making a stop at the place for the night. You knew to walk around back, follow the track that led to the stables and ultimately the smaller door that would lead inside the kitchen, open it with the key Miss Murray had given you. You make a note of a couple of men standing near the horses, the usually empty rooms now filled with the animal. They were most likely tending to them, trying to keep them warm. You’re greeted with the familiar sound of the bustling kitchen; the cooks yelling at the other cooks about what to get ready, the loud roar of the fire, the sounds of knives chopping away their vegetables and meats. You can smell the usual pies and stews they made nearly every night. This night seems to be their specialty of chicken pie with potato gravy soup. If there was a moment you could slip away and taste some, you reminded yourself to do so.

Glancing around the large room you take in the sight of the visitors of the night. There are a few wooden beams that restrict your vision, but you don’t need eyes to know just how packed it is. The sounds inside are even louder than the ones you heard walking near the place, and you’d wager that there are far more people staying here than usual. You’d guess that with the recent and abundant snowfall, some travelers were forced to re-route, and by the looks of it, you see far more strangers than familiar faces.

But you don’t let that distract you, walking over to the fireplace as you crouch down, making sure your cloak and skirt weren’t bunched up under your boots. You set the cart down near the fireplace, taking your gloves off as you held it near the heat for a few seconds. The gloves did a great job with keeping the cold from your hands, but they limited your mobility, and when you had to unload the logs, the branches, twigs, and everything in between, you wanted to do it as quickly as possible. You place them all into the large basket, observing the flickering flames. It’s still going strong, but there are some embers of coal that seem to be dying out, and so you tug carefully the door of the fireplace open as you place some wood inside, fanning it so that it would grow a little more.

You brush your hands against your legs, getting rid of the spare bits of bark and wood, and hold it back up to the fire as you feel the tension in your fingers and wrists begin to melt away.

“We don’t pay ‘ye to keep up our space, y’know,”

You turn your head around to the voice, smiling when you see Miss Murray standing behind you with her hands on her hips, her apron stained with spilled ale and some food splatters. Her gray curls are pulled underneath her cap, her full cheeks red and rosy, her lips pulled into a slight frown.

She tries to look serious, but her act slips away instantly when she sees you, moving closer as she wraps her around around you from behind, her arms reaching your shoulders, just barely, as you crouch a little to pull her in for a hug.

It’s only been a night since she sees you, but this is always how Miss Murray greets you.

“Are ‘ye warm?” She asks, her eyes worried as she looks at your hands and your slightly runny nose.

You chuckle, nodding your head so that she doesn’t fret.

“I’m warming up,” you tease your brow slightly raised, holding your fingers up to her cheeks to show that they were no longer cold, wiping your elbow across your nose as you go back to holding your hands over the fire, “And dare I say it’s my right seeing how it’s my wood that’s burning?”

Miss Murray chuckles, pinching you softly on the side as you yelp, moving a little bit away from her as you giggle.

She stands next to you, looking over the crowd as she takes in who needs more beer and food, making a mental tally in her head. Once your entire body has finally thawed, you stand up straighter, turning around to look at the busy crowd, not a single chair going unused.

“It’s busier than usual, no?” You ask, crossing your arms across your chest as you look to Miss Murray, tucking your hands into your elbows to keep the warmth.

She nods, her eyes turning to yours slightly before she goes back to assessing each table.

“Aye,” her voice is slightly lowered, not wanting others to hear, “The storm caught many travelers by surprise. There’s a group of young men coming in from Lolygrad,” a Western town, you note, a name you remember from ages ago, “Said they wanted to go up ‘nor but their horses cannae walk through the snow.”

You chew on your lips, looking at the large group of men gathered near a corner, their beards and shaggy hair covering up most of their faces. Most of them had their backs to you, and the ones facing outwards were hunched, their shoulders sagging as they leaned their ears in to hear clearly what was being said. The rest of their features were pinched together as they let out howls of laughter, swinging their mugs of beer around as they listened to one of their members tell an animated story.

You slightly smiled at the hearty sound, against your own will.

“Oh, dear, before I forget,” Miss Murray suddenly turned around, gently holding your hands as you look a little bit down, “Ewan,” her son, another worker at the tavern, the poor fellow who was tasked with almost every job, including getting the hefty tree trunks cut into bits, “Said he saw ‘ye heaving that barrow through the snow-” you began to shake your head, knowing what she was going to say but she raised a hand midway to stop you.

“He told me to tell ‘ye to leave it near the stables. When the snow has settled and thaws a bit, he’ll bring it to ‘ye.”

Your brows furrow, lips parting slightly as you go to protest.

“But what about the firewood? I can’t lug it up on my own,” you joke a little bit, your lips quivering as Mis Murray smiles, patting your arm as she shakes her head.

“Ye’ve brought us enough wood to supply a week, maybe even more,” she says, and you look behind your shoulder at the overflowing bin, knowing there were at least three more filled with logs waiting out back, “Give yerself a rest dear.” Her kind face looks at you in such a way that you can’t argue, sighing deeply through your nose as you debate it. You have enough coins to last you for a while, and seeing that you already have some bread and food prepared, it shouldn’t be much of an issue. So you nod.

You move to get your gloves, pulling them on as you head back out through the kitchen. You brace yourself for the cold, wrapping your scarf tighter around your neck and throwing your hood over your head as you open the door, quickly leaving and shutting it, knowing how much he cooks bickered when you let the air in.

You keep your head down, nose scrunching as your boots crunch as you walk through the snow, nearing the corner of the tavern, the one that rounds into the road that leads you back home before a yell catches your attention.

It comes from behind you, the sound slightly muffled with the hood and scarf slightly covering your ears, but you glance over your shoulder to see what it was.

In the distance, one of the men is waving over to you, his body illuminated slightly from behind from one of the lit torches that hang on the wall of the stables. Your eyes squint, moving a few steps closer as you try to make out what he was saying.

“...glove,” is all you make out, the wind roaring around you not helping. But he waves a red glove around, and you look to your hands to see that your right glove was missing. It had been so cold that you didn’t notice it had been blown away, the only thing covering your hand being your bandages.

You shake your head, rolling your eyes at the thought, and slightly jog back, bringing your hand to your lips as you blow some hot air on it. Your cheeks feel like they're on fire with how freezing it is, the tip of your nose about to fall off, but you’re able to muster up a thankful smile as you near the man.

“Thank you!” you call out, laughing a little bit at the absurdity of it all, boots scrunching and sounding like ice being shaved as you run a little bit closer to him, the man taking a few steps himself so that you wouldn’t have to go the full distance, and you squint your eyes more, trying to make out his blurry appearance that’s slightly coming to as he nears another torch, “It’s so cold that I didn’t even notice…”

You stop.

It seems like time has stopped.

The snow seems to have frozen in mid-air, not falling as it stops around you. The wind no longer howls, but has fallen silent. The snow on the ground doesn't glisten, the torches lit with fire slowing down.

Your lungs don’t work. You can’t feel any air coming in through your nose. It might be because your nose refused to inhale. You can’t feel your heart, can’t feel a singular beat to keep you alive. Your pulse has fallen silent, your ears hearing every sound but no sound at all.

Gojo seems to have stopped breathing as well.

His hand is still reaching out, your glove held tightly in his fingers as he stares,

And you stare back.

Your chest heaves out a single puff of air.

You blink once before everything suddenly goes black.

—

“...is it really…?”

“...never found a…thought she had…there must be…”

“..last time I saw him look like that…”

There are multiple voices that blend together, and you can’t tell what’s happening aside from the fact that you can’t feel your limbs and your eyes feel like they’ve been turned to lead. You can’t open them, can’t move, can’t do anything but try to figure out what is happening around you.

“...doubt he knew,” a voice, louder and more clear than the rest fills your ears, sounding a little less like it was coming from underwater, “...searched for months…looks like her…”

Her?

The conversations around you continue, and you feel your fingers slightly twitching, a good sign that you weren’t completely incapable of moving. You feel your lashes flutter, lips parting a little bit.

You try to listen more to the voices, but suddenly a loud slam happens from somewhere in the room. You nearly flinch, eyes moving back and forth between your lids and you will yourself to sit up, to do something.

The voices suddenly all fall silent, and your ears are becoming more in tune because you can pick up on the heavy thud that rings around the walls, loud but quiet at the same time, heavy and deep.

The sound nears your ears before it completely stops.

You feel a touch, light, barely there, but you feel it. It’s the grace of a feather upon your body, a fingertip that slightly moves across skin. Your pointer finger moves a little bit, but it’s so miniscule that you doubt the touch noticed.

It’s familiar, you think to yourself, you’ve felt this touch before. It wasn’t Miss Murray, for her fingers were more round and rough. It wasn’t foreign, because sometimes you still got off put by a stranger's touch. This was something you knew once, had carded somewhere in your mind when your skin felt raw and barren.

“Nothing?”

The voice, it’s even more familiar. You hear it not only settle deep into your eardrums, but it rattles around your head, flowing down into your blood, seeping into your bones. Your brows scrunch a little bit, and you feel like a little bit of life is flooding back into you. Your toes curl in your boots, fingers itching against the wooden surface you feel yourself lying back upon.

“Nothing at all?”

That voice. The touch. The feel of those fingers against your skin, the way the voice breathes.

Gojo.

Your eyes suddenly snap open, your chest concaving in as you take in a big gasp of air. You shoot upwards, your hands resting on either side of you as they balance you on the table, your chest moving up and down with big movements as you look around wildly.

The men that surrounded the table were the same men you saw earlier that night. But you know them all. Samson, Ren, Kenji, Declan, Koji. You remember now, how they all challenged each other to grow the longest hair and beard in the winter months, the winner taking the head of a hog they had hunted. Malcolm, Oisín, Shiro, Genji.

They all stared back at you, their faces clammy and pale, as if they were staring at a ghost.

Your body is shaking, your neck turning when you look to your side.

Gojo.

There’s a hitch in your breathing, your lips trembling when your eyes take in his face.

Those eyes, the same eyes that stared back at you the day you married him. A foggy storm, oceans clashing upon each other, dark and messy. His hair was as white as the falling snow right outside the window, slightly longer than what you remembered, but still the same shape.

His lips, red as the blood that stained the bandages around your hands. You take in the shape of his nose, the lashes upon his lids. The sharp line of his jaw, the slight twitch of his eyes. You take in the lifeless appearance of his skin, his cheeks lacking their usual pink hue. His figure looks even sturdier, more pronounced muscles around his shoulders and chest, the fabric around his arms tight. He looks exactly like you imagine him each night.

You had forgotten some little things over time; like the scar near his left ear or the mole above his brow. You don’t remember how there was a slight crook in his nose from when he had broken it as a child from falling down a tree, but it’s still him. It’s Gojo.

Your fingers itch to touch his face. Your nails dig into the wood.

You look at him. Look at the way his chest rises with each breath. This wasn’t a dream. This was him. He was real and staring back at you.

You had to get out.

It feels like a force pushes your body forward. You don’t know what strength it was that allowed you to swing your legs over the table, what power it was that allowed you to lurch yourself away and fall into him. He doesn’t budge, doesn’t falter, but you hear the others around you exclaiming some things in surprise at your sudden movements.

You don’t stay on him for too long, forcing your feet that feel like iron ore to take one step at a time. You limp and stumble your way through, blindly grabbing for things as you pick up your pace, not looking over your shoulders as your hand reaches for the door.

“Come back.”

It’s his voice. You feel yourself shiver at the sound.

But you don’t know what to do except escape, your palm touching the door knob.

“Come. Back.” His voice is steady, biting, warning, and he doesn’t say anything else because this itself is the extent of what he’s willing to say.

You pause, not looking behind you, your knees shaking as you support yourself upright on the door, one hand sprawled out on it as you heave. You feel like throwing up, feel like your head is about to burst.

This can’t be happening. This can’t be real.

You feel your body shaking, your arms quivering, your legs wobbling. Your shoulders are moving up and down as you struggle to breathe again, and you feel your legs slowly give out beneath you, and you crumble down onto the floor, your hand still on the door as the other one covers your mouth, trying to keep your broken soul contained.

“My lord, should we-”

“Get out,” Gojo says, barely above a whisper, but perhaps the most forward and heavy command you’ve ever heard him give.

There’s a confused silence that follows, his men faltering with the sudden order.

“But-”

“Out!” He roars, and you don’t make a move from the door, can’t find a bone in your body that has the ability to pull yourself away.

Thankfully, you think this is one of the more advanced rooms of the tavern, and when you hear the patter of footsteps and a door latch open from another side of the room, one that most likely leads to an office that has another door out to the hallways. It takes a minute, but the footsteps begin to slow and finally they cease, the door quickly clicking shut as the last man closes it behind him.

But there’s still one person remaining, and you could distinguish who it was by the sound of his breathing alone.

Your back is still facing him, your hands moving to hold your head as you fall sideways to the wall next to you, your hands moving down to hide your sweaty and clammy face from the one person you had convinced yourself you’d never see again.

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t move.

You curl your legs up to your chest in an effort to hide as much as yourself away from him as possible. It feels like your heart isn’t working correctly. It rattles around at an odd pace in the limited space of your rib cage, bouncing around erratically, trying to warn you that something was wrong. Your hands grasp at your chest, fingers digging into the skin as you try to calm it down.

But you soon realize that that’s not your only problem. Your head was spinning in a way that made you see twos of everything, your forehead beading with sweat. It feels like you’ve lost control over any of your movements, your body working as one, your mind as a totally separate entity. You wondered if this was you dying, if your body had suddenly given up.

“Slow your breathing down.”

You falter, eyes looking above your direct line of sight which was staring at the wall adjacent to you, traveling upwards when you slowly looked up and saw muddy boots, then a familiar pair of black trousers, upwards till you landed on his chest and then his chin. You see his face, looking down at your form, his eyes dark but focused on your face, his lips pulled into a thin line. You hadn’t heard him come near you, but you also doubt you’d hear a canon go off in this state.

Gojo.

You shake your head, looking instantly away from him as your lips tremble, snot falling from your nose as you look anywhere else. It seems difficult to breathe, the simple but tiring task bordering on impossible.

You can’t see him, but hear a small thump sound a few seconds later. You glance from above your lashes to see that he’s taken a seat, resting his back on the wall that’s facing yours. His legs are sprawled out, long things that you used to tease him about, and the tip of his boots almost reach your knees.

“Reach your hand out,” he says after a beat of silence.

You almost scoff at the insanity of it.

But you look at him, truly look him in the eyes this time, and see that he’s being serious.

You look back down to your shaking hands, cold and still bandaged up, and then back to him. It feels unreal. You feel your hands shake even more when your mind computes again that it’s Gojo that’s two feet in front of you.

“One hand at a time,” Gojo says, his voice lowered, and he demonstrates by sitting up a little bit, leaning a breathe closer, still feet away from you as he lifts his hand up from where it was resting on his thigh, holding it up in the air, fingers sprawled from each other, “Like this.”

Your mind tells you to move, just a little bit, and your fingers twitch against your knees that were sitting close to your chest. It takes a few seconds but you will raise your hands upwards, slowly, gently, just like he did. It’s shaking, he isn’t, but he doesn’t say anything about it.

His eyes look over the bandages on your hand. Some spots are dotted with red blood from your most recent cuts. He looks at your fingers, the dirt beneath your nails and the way they’re cut at odd angles. He finally focuses on your fourth finger, lingering on its bareness, and you don’t realize in that moment just how much he was mourning the absence of your wedding ring.

“Bring it away from your body,” his voice is barely a whisper, thick with unspoken emotions that have plagued him for the past year and a half, his own eyes glossing over slightly when he takes you in, just as you were doing to him.

You find that in these last moments your erratic breathing has slowed down a bit, so you go the distance, gingerly stretching your arm out so that your hand is straight in front of you, still trembling just a bit.

“I’m going to hold your hand with mine. It helps, I promise.”

I promise.

Your teeth clatter against each other, your tongue laying flat and like a stone in your mouth. You can’t speak yet, but there’s a sharp look in his eyes. The same one that happened whenever he made his promises to you. Ones he’d never break.

So you slowly tilt your head down in a small nod.

He watches this, observing your behavior. He shows you his hand, never putting it down, just carefully outstretching his arm like you did, and he moves a little bit away from the wall to get a little closer to you.

You never blink as you watch his hand stretch out towards yours, fingers straight, and in a few seconds they hover above yours. He’s not wearing his ring, you note, but put your focus on the fact that in another moment his skin is touching your skin, his fingers curling slowly over yours. In another moment, his hand moves, gently holding yours in his. That touch, the same touch you feel like a lingering ache at night.

The two of you don’t say anything, looking at where your hands meet with bated breath.

The touch was grounding. You feel his fingers against your palm, long and steady, unlike your own. His skin is warm, comforting, inviting. It’s not soft, but it never was. Years of yielding swords, bows, spears, using his fists as means of destruction caused that. But when he held you, it never felt like the hands of a warrior, just of a man. Your own fingers stretch outwards, your tips gracing his large hand, slightly above his wrist, where his pulse point is. You try to forget that the last time you touched him was so long ago

“Better?” He asks simply, taking in how your chest had slowed its movements, the sweat on your forehead stopping. Your eyes are still glossy, but he knows it’s more than just an episode that’s causing that.

You swallow thickly, looking down at your hands and not to him as you nod again.

There’s a silence that follows, the only sound being the small exhale that you would give, and his slight inhale.

You’re the first to move, your hand going slack in his as you begin to pull away. His own finger twitches, not wanting to let go for a minute, but he falters and lets you move away, resting your back up against the wall as you cradle the hand close to your chest, as if it was searing.

Gojo moves back too, his shoulders square as his hands go to rest on his thighs again, letting out a large puff of air through his lips. After another moment his head dips, fists clenched as he pinches the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezing shut as if he too can’t believe any of this. He runs a hand through his white hair, pushing it back, before he allows himself to open his eyes again and stare at you.

“I’ve looked for you for sixteen months.”

You look at him blankly, but inside something cracks.

“I thought you were dead after the first eight,” Gojo says, “So I've just been searching for your body.”

You look away from him, the sight of him here and speaking to you too much to bear.

He waits for you to say something, anything, a flash of anger crossing his face, his nose flaring and lips stretching thin as he tries to control himself. He had convinced himself for a while now that you were dead. He wondered what he’d do if he found you somewhere, not knowing how to prepare himself for the sight.

But in the beginning, when he was sure that he’d find you, Gojo wondered about what he might say to you if he ever saw you again. He told himself that he’d yell, he’d beg you to tell him why you ran away, why you never wrote back, but his anger faded and dissipated the minute he saw you. The anger, the frustration, the pain, hurt, breaking, everything that he feels now is from seeing you alive, knowing that you were alive this whole time and never once said anything. The tears and the bite in his throat he has to fight back being from the sole reason of how much he missed you.

He sees you here, alive, your chest moving with each breath. He sees the flutter of your lashes against your cheek, the plump of your lips. He sees your eyes, more tired and filled with unknown sorrow, but still that burning color he loved so much. He watches the way your arms wrap around yourself, the curve of your jaw and the way you try to blink away your tears. Gojo sees you and though there are small changes to your appearance, still remembers you being as beautiful as the day he last saw you.

His wife, Gojo thinks, his wife was alive after all this time.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” he thinks his voice comes out breathy, almost like he was trying to stop himself from cracking in front of you, “Why didn’t you send a letter? Or…or a sign?”

You bite down on your lip, your head turned away from him so that he couldn’t see your face. You feel yourself choking as he speaks, your eyes stinging with tears again. You can’t do this, you can’t.

You blindly walk back into the other part of the room, where he and his men originally were. You hear him move instantly behind you, as if he was fearful you’d try to make a run for it again, but you’re searching for a pitcher, your throat dry and aching.

You stumble around, wiping away at your wet cheeks, hands stiff as you turn desperately to find anything, something to just wash away the biting and choking feeling you had that was settling deep in your chest.

Your eyes almost light up when you see a pitcher, making your way through it as your fingers grasp the handle, finding a cup next to it as you bring it up. It’s heavy, filled with water, and although you’ve gotten stronger these past months lifting and carrying wood, you can’t seem to properly pour.

It must be from how your hands are still shaking. Water pours messily from the sprout, getting everywhere but the cup. You let out a frustrated cry, wiping the tears away from the corners of your eyes with your elbow as you try again.

Something stops you. You look over your shoulder to see Gojo, his hand hovering over your arm that’s holding the pitcher. Silently, he grabs it, fingers curling around the handle as you let go. He reaches for the cup in your hand, which you give him, and sniffles when he calmly pours some water for you, handing it back with the cup full.

You take it after a beat of quiet, bringing it to your lips as you chug it down. You finish it in seconds, wiping your lips as you squeeze your eyes shut, feeling his heat radiating off of him from how close he was to you.

“You have to leave.”

Your voice comes out frail and hoarse, and you're staring at him through tear stricken eyes, your lips pressed firmly into a little frown, one that you do to help you from crying even more. You cross your arms over your chest, wincing slightly when your bandage rubs the wrong way, but you refuse to drop your gaze from his.

“Y-you can’t know I’m here,” you’re shaking your head adamantly, stuttering as you think of everything that has happened and what it means, the repercussions that could come from it, all of your sacrifices amounting to nothing, “None of you can…please, gods, I…” You let out a gasp, hands covering your mouth as you frantically walk away from him, pacing around the vastness of the empty room.

You run your hands over your face, wringing your fingers, fidgeting with the fabric of your bodice as you shake your head repeatedly. They know you’re here, they know you’re alive. If anybody finds out, if word gets out of where you are and your true identity, gods, what if the king finds out?

You’re muttering words to yourself, tears catching on your cheeks, chin, falling into your lips, and you phase Gojo out. You act like he’s no longer there. It feels like what you’ve done for the past year, pretending like his ghost, the thought of him, wasn’t haunting you when in fact it was at every single second of the day.

“Leave!” You shout, your voice hoarse, “Get out! Leave! Please!” You’re pleading with the gods above to make him listen to you, to cast away his stubbornness and pride and make him listen to your words just this once.

“Leave?” He says with a stutter, a chuckle of disbelief falling from his lips, “What are you sa-”

“Get out!” You scream, cutting him off, pointing at his chest and to the door, “I don’t want you here! Go!”

He shouts your name, loud and clear, and you instantly stop.

Your brows are furrowed down the middle, a crease between them, and you feel like your eyes are slightly twitching. You must look mad to him, not the person he once remembered. You hope he feels disgust, wanting to leave as soon as he gets a few words in. That would be ideal. Maybe he despises you so much he doesn’t talk about you ever again, satisfied to see just how poorly you’re doing by yourself

But to be fair, he doesn’t look any better himself.

There are dark circles under his eyes. His skin seems flushed, but not in a good way. There’s a bead of sweat above his brow bone, his lips moving slightly as if he wants to yell, scream, cry, shout, but can’t figure out which one to do. The more you get a look at him the more you’re able to see the cracks in his usual appearance. The way he hides behind his strength but fails to use that strength to keep himself afloat.

But oh, how you wish to walk to him, run to him. How you long to collapse in his chest, to feel his heartbeat against our cheek. How you want to feel those sturdy hands wrap themselves around you, give you an embrace you’ve been chasing for so long. You want to feel his skin, taste his tears. You want him, all of him. But you can’t, you remind yourself. He’s not yours to have anymore.

“That’s it?” He bites out, his tone furious, “You haven’t seen me in over a year and that’s it? I have to leave?” He sputters, a bitter laugh falling from his lips as he rubs a hand across his jaw in disbelief, as if he can’t fathom the person that’s standing in front of himself right now is the person he nearly died trying to find.

You glance out the window, the snow storm still going strong. It’s as dark as ink outside, the only light that’s illuminating your faces coming from the candles lit that scatter across the room. You wish you were in the snow than in here, the freezing winds better than the hot and burning sensation you feel at the moment.

“You…you don’t understand,” you plead quietly, “This isn’t-”

“What?” Gojo snaps, cutting you off as your mouth clams up, “This isn’t what? Simple? Easy to grasp?” He’s cracking, his demeanor slipping from calm to angry, ”How you ran away without any fucking warning? How you evaded all my guards? How you wound up here? What can I not understand? Because I’ve spent a year and a fucking half coming up with every single theory that could explain this!” His voice bounces off the walls and you wince slightly, face cracking as you sniffle, “So what? What is it? What can I not get that’s so difficult to comprehend?”

A strand of his hair has fallen onto his face and his eyes have gotten as dark blue as they can get. You let out a little sob, covering your mouth as you turn away from him, shaking your head again and again as you try to think, try to will yourself out of this.

How could you explain any of this? How could you tell him without anything happening as a consequence? There’s no simple way. If you tell him the truth, who’s to say he’d believe you. And on the off chance he does, there’s no way he’d sit still and take it. All your efforts of keeping the two nations from war would break. If Gojo believed that his wife had been abducted due to order from the Southern king, a war was no longer the worst thing that could happen but full fledged destruction. Years of bloodshed and violence and everything you did would be for nothing.

But if you didn’t tell him? If you lied? You didn’t know what to do or say, not expecting or preparing for a moment like this because you never thought it would happen. You tried to live blissfully unawares, hoping that your past life had eventually faded away.

“Tell me,” he says again, his voice cracking, and his tone has fallen, it’s not angry, not the facade he was putting up because he could never be angry with you, could never yell at you and immediately regret his actions, “I’m here, I found you, so, so please, just…just tell me why,”

You jam your palms into your eyes, beginning to pace around the room again as you breathe deeply.

“I, I didn’t know,” you don’t know what to say, how to lie, what to do to make any of this make sense, how to satisfy sixteen months of questions, prayers, hurt, in the little time you had, “I can’t…” you sigh through your nose, looking at him apologetically, cheeks shining in the candlelight as your lips tremble and you shake your head, giving him a small shrug, “I-I can’t tell you.”

“Was it because I left?” He takes a few steps forward to get closer to you but falters when he sees how you take one back, his eyes confused, full of pain as he stammers, “Were…were you scared? Because I came back,” you let out another cry, hiccuping when you heard the tenderness and hurt in his voice, “I came back like I promised you I would.” And you shake your head to that and he pauses, hand clenching and unclenching as he tries to figure you out with your minimal words and even more limited movements.

“So…so why? Darling, please, just tell me why,” He’s begging you, and Gojo never begs. Not unless he needs to. Not unless it’s without anybody other than you.

“You don’t - don’t understand,” your voice cracks as you wipe away your falling tears, “It’s n-not that.” How could he think you didn’t believe him? The thought that he even believed that, using it as a hypothesis breaks you even more and your chest shakes, fingers itching to hold him and tell him everything that happened.

Gojo looks like he’s struggling to think, like he doesn’t know what to do as he throws his arms in the air, his eyes pleading with you. You see a slight sheen in them, see the way they quiver, how maybe he too is crying. Maybe from frustration, maybe because he just missed seeing your face.

“Then what?” He takes another tentative step closer and you don’t move, frozen in place, and he takes one more step to you, until he’s only a foot away, “Was it because of…because of the war? Because of what I did? Were you angry with me?”

You lick your lips as you pursue them, squeezing your eyes shut as you cry even more. A sound tears from your throat, a sort of wail that you can’t control, and it’s one that you don’t mean to let out. You furiously wipe at your face, your head hanging low as you cross your arms across your stomach. It doesn’t take another second until you hear his boots thump along the floor, bringing himself to you as he pauses. And slowly, before you or Gojo knows what’s happening, you feel one of his arms circle your shoulders. Unknowing, a movement he wasn’t sure of.

But then you break, falling into his chest as you sob, your arm flying upwards to grasp onto anything you could, fingers digging into the fabric of his coat, into his shoulders, around his waist. You can smell the faint lingering smell of smoke on him, the little hint of leather. You sniffle, fingers moving up towards his hair, wanting to feel it beneath your skin. You wanted to cherish it for a moment longer, like you should have all those months ago. You feel the sturdiness of his chest against yours, feel the buttons that engrave into your cheek. You feel him, all of him that there is to offer.

You don’t realize how he does the same as you. The anger instantly faded when he felt your body against his, when he wrapped his arms around your frame. He could feel the flesh of your cheeks as he moved his hands across your face, over and down your torso as he grasped onto your waist. He wanted to push you away, force you to feel the pain he had all those months, but he couldn’t. He had you now, and he didn’t know how much longer he was allowed to. His lips are a breath away from your forehead, and he presses them to the crown of your head, his chest shaking as he cries silently, his tears wetting your hair.

You don’t know why he holds you like he used to, why he comforts you like he still loves you. After all this time you thought that the only way he’d touch was if he were to touch you with a sword, banishing you from the North and from any of their territories if he saw you again. Not this. Never this.

If only you knew how upon feeling you, holding you close to his chest, he first took a breath of air in sixteen months. If only you knew how his heart started to pump, pump, pump, the way it was supposed to, and not the pathetic little beats it did just to simply keep him alive but wasn’t living until now. Because the truth was that he’d already forgiven you for what you did. He’d forgiven everything you had done up until this point and would forgive everything you do later, even if he wouldn’t be there to witness it.

“I’m s-sorry,” you cry into his chest, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you chant, your words slurring together in a mixture of apologies, guilt, longing, hurt, and every emotion you’ve bottled up and decided to put away, hoping you’d never have to touch them again.

It was a culmination of months away from the only man you had ever loved. Months of barely surviving, living through peoples scraps and trash as you tried to run away as far away from the only home you had ever known in a last ditch effort to be of some help to the people you cared about. It was a broken plea for Gojo to hear everything you had suffered in just two repeated words, knowing that he could never truly know what you had done and why you had done it unless you told him yourself. He just hugs you tighter, his arms caging you in as you bring yours close to your chest, your hand lying against his torso as your body shakes with cries. His hand rubs up and down your back, fingers curling into your cloak as he just nods, not trusting his own voice, just holding you with as much strength he could muster without crushing you.

Gojo waited for sixteen months, and he’d be damned if he let go of you now. Not after countless nights of staying awake and days riding across the four nations, through rain and mud, snow and storm, heat and desert, weeks spent without barely a blink of sleep, all in efforts to find you. And now he has. And he isn't letting you go. Not now, not ever again.

“Did you mean what you wrote?” He asks against your head, his lips falling open in a silent cry as his hands shake against your body. You squeeze your hands, balling them into fists against his chest. No, you want to scream, no!

“I have to leave. I could never, under any gods’ sky, pretend to keep loving a man as barbarous as you,” his voice is choked, the sentence falling from his lips at such a heart wrenching rate, and a part of your mind flashes to that fated night when the man put that knife to your throat and forced you to copy down those words, the same ones he’s saying now, the words that he memorized after reading your farewell letter over and over again, the letters searing into his mind, “Did you mean that?” You hear how Gojo’s voice cracks, as if hearing you admit to that would be a fate worse than death, as if he regrets asking the question that’s been plaguing him for months.

You feel your tears soak through his coat, your teeth biting into your lips as you control yourself, taking every part of your soul that wants to crawl out and scream, from shaking your head. So you just go limp against him, nails digging into your palms.

“Look at me,” he whispers, his hand trailing up from your back, floating over your side as it comes upwards to grab at the side of your head which was hidden away in his chest. You don’t fight him as his fingers latch under the skin of your jaw, or when he cups your face as gently as he possibly could, his touch like a feather as he angles you upwards to look at him.

When you see his face you let out a little shaky exhale, wet and messy as you feel his warmth travel from his fingers to your body, tingling everywhere, a certain type of warmth that you had been missing for a while and only came back because the other half of your soul did.

“Tell me you meant it, p-please,” his voice travels across the walls of the room, heavy, barely above a whisper but you hear every crack, every single way he breaks down, no longer able to keep himself strong, “That you ran away because you never loved me, and I’ll…I’ll leave,” his thumb rubs up and down your jaw, a movement he doesn’t even realize he’s doing, something that’s second nature to him and a tear falls from the corner of his eyes, his lashes fluttering as he tries to blink them away, “I’ll leave and you’ll never have to worry about me ever again.”

No, no no, no this can’t be happening all over again. You feel like you’re going insane, his thumb wiping away your tears as you stare silently at him, your lips chapped as you shake your head slightly, knowing the movement itself just cost you everything. You see the way a little spark makes its way onto his face and you shake your head even more at that, not wanting him to get any sort of idea.

“N-no, no, no,” you mutter, gasping for air, his hand falling a little bit but you chase after his touch, your head falling into his palm like it was meant to, “No, I…I didn’t want to, I m-mean I didn’t, I,” you’re stammering, words falling out like vomit and you can’t control them.

You press your cold fingers to your eyes, shaking your head as if it’s the only thing you can do.

“I,” you sigh, looking up at him with a breaking look, “I d-didn’t but,” he deflates a little bit and it hurts to see the most strongest person you’ve ever seen look so broken, “But I can’t,” you whisper the last word with as much strength as you could, “I can’t go back.”

Gojo lets out a puff of air, his shoulders rising and falling, his hand pulling away from your face, most likely thinking you didn’t want it there when it was the only thing you wanted, the only thing you longed for when you were alone and slept with one eye open.

He looks lost, confused, not knowing what to say to make any sense of this.

You take a step back.

“Then,” he runs a hand through his hair, something he does when he is stressed, not knowing what else to do with his hands, “Why did you write it? Why…why, why did you leave?”

You look away, your mouth opening slightly before you close it again, knowing your best option was to stay silent.

“Was…was there someone else?” There’s a slight tremor in his voice, no malice, no blaming, just curiosity, “Someone here?”

You quickly shake your head, hiccuping a little bit as your nose scrunches up, sniffing when you vehemently try to silently tell him no, that the only person you’ve loved and can ever love was him. That you’d rather stab a stake through your heart that makes room in your heart for anybody else but him.

“Y-you didn’t do anything,” you murmur, a tear slipping down your nose as you shudder, “It wasn’t because of you.”

“Then why?” He presses quickly, pleading, his cheeks red and flushes as he begs for you to talk, to say something other than the empty clues you’re giving him, “If, if not because of another person then…then what possible reason did you have for leaving?” Gojo pauses to catch his breath, glancing away from you as he tries to regain composure, “You left without any other reasons telling me why, coming to a random town on the eastern coast with nobody you know here. It’s,” he laughs to himself, shaking his head as he shrugs indifferently, “It’s not like you were forced to leave, so…so why, why darling, why?”

There’s a hitch in your breathing when he utters the simple words. It’s not like you were forced to.

Your mind flashes quickly with memories of that night, the man on top of you, the knife pressed to your throat, urging you to write that letter. You remember waking up on his horse, your hands bound, trying to piece together what was happening. You think back to his greasy hair, the oily smile, his cruel eyes. You can still hear his gruff voice in your ear, the way he ordered you around your own room as if you were his dog, doing whatever he asked you to to spare the lives of those outside the door. You remember his hot breath on your skin, the weight of his body on yours, the way his eyes raked over your figure. You remember him lying on the ground, bloodied, calling you names as you ran away with his horse.

Gojo calls your name, once and then twice when you don’t acknowledge him the first time.

He stares at your body with furrowed brows, taking in the way your chest heaves, your fingers digging into your sides as you stare blankly out the window.

Gojo takes a few brisk paces to where you were, his hands grabbing your elbows, not tightly, just to force you out of your busy mind, his head shaking in utter confusion at the way you suddenly left, and you slowly blink out of your stupor, looking at him and his questioning eyes.

There’s a strange look on your face, one he doesn’t recognize.

His mouth parts a little bit, eyes squinting together as he assesses you. He lets out a small laugh, a disbelieving, questioning one, one that he can’t control because you didn’t react like this to any of his other questions.

“You…” his hand falls from your elbow, hovering over the back of your head, gently holding your nape, and you feel like a magnet, drawn to him, your hands balled by your side to keep you from doing something you’d regret, “You weren’t…forced to leave…right?”

You just stare at him.

You count to five, trying to steady your breaths. You want to shake your head, to disagree with his question even though it was the only correct thing, but your body stops you from doing that. Maybe it was fighting back, begging for you to tell him the truth. You evade eye contact from him, your tongue resting on the roof of your mouth and you swallow thickly, forcing down the bile.

But Gojo knows you, knows how to read your quiet expressions and little ticks. You don’t do anything but stay quiet. Soon, after a few seconds pass and he stares longer at your face, your silence becomes your only answer.

His hand falls away from your head, taking a few steps back as if the air had been punched from his lungs.

It was one of the first things he thought when he was given your letter. Thought you had been abducted, and entertained the idea for as long as he could. But there were just no signs of a forced entry, your bags packed and missing some clothes. He read your letter over and over again, and when they never found you, he began to believe the words you had written down. Different ideas came to him, ones of a different lover, ones that made him believe you truly never loved him, ones that said you had run away on your own free will.

He covers his mouth with his hand, a tremor in his breath when you glanced at him with a sheen in your eyes.

“But…?”

There’s no answer, no need for one.

You shrug a little bit, wiping at your cheeks once again as you purse your lips together, sniffing as you try to keep everything at bay.

“I, um,” you swallow your spit back, biting your lip as you think for a second, think before the dam breaks and you realize it useless to keep any of this in anymore because Gojo knows and it’s worthless to keep it a secret, “A man came a few nights after you had left. Through my window.”

You peek over at Gojo and quickly glance away because the look on his face is too much to process. You keep your eyes trained on the corner of a carpet, at the fraying end as you decide to continue.

“He was huge, ‘Toru, like nothing you’ve ever seen,” you say with a small laugh, one because this entire situation is too much to handle, your hands moving away from your body as you show his width with the space between them, “He told me he’d cut my tongue out if I screamed, so I…I didn’t.”

You sniffle again, chewing on the inside of your cheek, pausing slightly as your jaw ticks the more you recall that night.

“H-he had this letter in his, uh,” you sigh, trying to control your breathing as you blink rapidly, brows furrowed as you motion to your chest, “In his pocket. He told me to write the same words down b-but in my own handwriting.”

Gojo feels his knees give out, holding onto one of the pillars of the bed next to him to keep himself upright, his eyes never leaving your lips, his head suddenly feeling like it was about to detach from his body.

“I was told to pack some b-bags and clothes,” you wave your hands around as if that wasn’t important, “And I think he, uh, hit me in the back of my head,” your hand rises to your head, as if you could still feel the pulsing feeling from when you had woken up days later, “So I was out for five, six? Six days, I think, before I woke up again and was on his horse.”

The words fell from your mouth like silk, things you had been wanting to see forever spilling like water from a pitcher, and you couldn't stop yourself, the only thing your mouth was willing to do was continue.

“He said that somebody had sent him. Some bidding for the king, I guess. I think sometime between his talking I realized he was sent to kill me, dump my body in the woods so you’d think I had left. So I knew I had to leave, fight my way out somehow. And…and I don’t know…how, but,” you chuckle to yourself, shrugging at the thought of you when you broke free from your restraints and overpowered him, the look of surprise in his gnarly face when you dug the knife into his ribs, “But I was able to get away from him. I might’ve killed him, I didn’t check.”

Your blurry eyes blink upwards to Gojo as your head tilts to the side as you give him a small smile, full of unsaid words and melancholy feelings.

“I wanted to go back, back home to you and - and everything but,” your teeth dig into your bottom lip as the two of you stare back at each other through tears and even more tears, “But he said that if I had committed treason of the highest degree, that,” your teeth rattle, “That you’d never take me back. And that if they’d send more people like him. To hurt people l-like you, like Alina, my friends, your parents, e-everyone I cared for, everyone that you care for,” you can’t control the little cry that escape your lips, your hand flying upwards to your throat as you give yourself a second, “And I thought to myself that…that maybe if I ran away, if you thought that I no longer wanted to b-be your wife then,” one shoulder lifts up in a sad shrug, “Then maybe everything would resolve itself. That there’d be no war to fight, no cause to die for.”

You wait for a second, air lodged in your lungs.

“I nearly ended up dead on the side of a trail,” you motion around you, to the tavern, the snow, the town, “A lady found me and took me here. I,” you swallow thickly, tears caught on your lashes, “I’ve been here ever since.”

You look at him but he isn’t looking at you. You want him to look up, just this once, but he doesn't and you allow him his own time to think. You gnaw on your lips, fingers fidgeting with themselves as you tilt your head a little bit.

“I…” Your head tilts down to your chest, your words dying on your tongue, but there’s a sudden warmth that takes over you and you feel your legs being lifted from the ground as strong arms circle around your waist, your body almost flying back with the force and speed you were picked up with. You feel your arm go to circle around your head, holding you close to his face as he hugs you to himself like he never has before.

Your legs wrap around his torso, your cheek pressing against his and you cry, you let yourself let go of the tears, let go of the lost time, let go of all the feelings you told yourself you aren't allowed to feel, and wrapped your arms tightly around his shoulders and neck, holding him as close as you could to you.

“I j-just wanted to help,” you murmur wetly, choking as you sob, “I didn’t want anybody else to - to get hurt,” you tell him in broken phrases, “I didn’t want you to get h-hurt…”

He shushes you, lips kissing the side of your face, the corners of your eyes, your cheeks, the crown of your head, your ears, everything he could reach, feverishly. You could taste the saltiness of his own tears on your tongue, could feel his heart beating quickly from the pulse on his neck.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers against your skin, his eyes squeezing shut as he shakes his head over and over again, “I’m so sorry sweetheart, I’m sorry,” his arms grasp onto you tighter, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, gods, I’m sorry, I’m sorry darling, oh gods, I’m sorry,” you laugh weakly at his muttered apologies, at the way it sounds like he’s praying and apologizing at the same time; for your forgiveness, for you to believe that he was more sorry than any man has been and could be in his life.

“I s-should’ve stayed,” he cries out, his lips trembling as he kisses your forehead, between your eyebrows, your lids, “I should never have left,” you shake your head, trying to stop him but you can’t, “I…I shouldn’t have left, shit, gods, it’s m-my fault, I should’ve-”

“It’s not your fault,” you murmur against his ear, kissing his jaw softly, pulling away a little bit so that you could look him in the eyes, shaking your head a firmly as you could, holding onto the side of his face in your shaking hands, “Don’t you ever, e-ever, say that...you couldn’t - you couldn’t have known.” You shake with cries as you try to smile, try to rake your fingers through his hair to calm him down, twirling his hair around like you used to when you’d wake up next to him. You unlatch your legs from his waist, slowly setting them down as you stand up on your own, your hands still tangled with each other in his hair.

“I never stopped loving you,” you whisper, watching the way his face crumbled upon hearing your words, “When…when I was starving and didn’t know if I’d make it through the night, I tried to pretend you were beside me. And,” your shoulders shake again, “And when I didn’t want to wake up I pretended I was in o-our bed, about to wake up next to you. Everything - everything I did was for you, and I…I know you might hate me for it, despise me for running away but…” you trail off, your thumb running across his cheekbones, his brows, his nose, “But I hoped that one day you’d understand why.”

You finish your words, staring at him as he stares at you, a storm happening behind those irises you loved so much. You deflate, knowing that this must be your final goodbye. That he’d never want to get back with somebody who’d ruin their life so easily, who’d break his heart so quickly and without any remorse. You try to cherish the way he looked, try to engrain the little features you had forgotten in your head for when he eventually pulled away and wasn’t yours again. You open your mouth, wanting to tell him that you understand if he no longer shares the same feelings.

“I’m-”

His lips slam against yours, his hand behind your head to keep you steady as you stumble a little bit. Your arms go up to hold onto his, surprised and taken aback by the sudden movement. He pulls away almost as quickly as he had moved in, an apologetic look flashing across his face.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters breathlessly, his lips shining with spit, “I-”

This time it’s you who cuts him off, reaching your hands upwards to tangle back into his hair as your lips slot against and move roughly against his, mixing your tears, spit, love and pain with one another as he eagerly meets you in the middle with another hand sprawled out across your back, pulling you closer to him.

You angle your head upwards, wrapping your arms around his shoulders as your lips press harshly against one another. They move in tandem, in perfect synch, as if you hadn’t spent one day away from each other but still with so much passion as if to make up for the months spent without one another.

You moan slightly, your lips opening as the sound escapes you, and he surges forward, his tongue meshing with yours as he licks into your mouth, wanting to taste you, to drink from you as if he hadn’t had a proper sip to satiate his thirst in over sixteen months. His lips are soft and plump, just like you remember, and your eyelashes flutter against your cheek at the feeling of him panting into you like a mad man who was suddenly becoming sane.

The hand that he had resting on your back moves upwards, grabign and kneading at your hips, cupping your waist as you whine at the spark his touch brings, feeling lightheaded when he pulls away slightly just to bite down on your bottom lip with his teeth, his nose nudging against yours as you try to catch your breath.

“I missed you,” he whispers against your lips, two hands cradling each side of your face, “So, so much. I never stopped looking for you,” you laugh through your tears, your eyebrows quivering as you hold onto him, “I could barely sleep since you’ve been gone and the only reason I did was so that I could dream of you.”

You pull his neck down to press one, two, three chaste and salty kisses against his trembling lips.

“I would have taken you back even if you had burned the entirety of the North,” Gojo tell you in a low tone, “I would have taken you back even if you carved my heart out,” he kisses the tip of your nose tenderly, “Which you damn near did with that letter.” You laugh softly, his thumbs on either side of your lips as he cradles your face in the palms of his hands.

“I wish I never wrote it,” you say quickly, scrambling, your eyes darting around, “I never…” but he hushes you, shaking his head as he bring your head forward to place a longing and slow kiss on your forehead, one hand at the nape of your neck to force you look him in the eyes.

“If he,” he pauses, his nose flaring at the mention of the man who tore you away from him, he controls the anger that boils and bubbles at his flesh at the thought of him touching you, threatening you, hurting you, taking you away from him, but he knows it’s not the time for that right now, he’ll deliver chastisement when he gets the chance, “If that man told you to kill me, to kill an entire group of my men so that he wouldn’t hurt you, I’d let you it in a heartbeat,” you feel him wipe a tear away, looking at your features, taking in everything he had been nearly dying without for so long.

“I’m so proud of you, my darling girl,” he says delicately and your eyes well up at his words, never hearing them before and never expecting Gojo to be the one to tell you after everything that you had done, “Going through what you did? Surviving on your own? Gods,” he lets out a little chuckle, dipping his head down so it could rest on your own, smiling at you through his own tears, “That’s what I’d expect from my wife.”

Your mouth parts a little bit and you sniffle, holding onto the back of his arms like he’s your anchor, a tether to reality, to show you that this isn’t a dream and that you’d wake up in your shack but that he’s here.

You feel his arms go lower though, grabbing your thighs from behind your skirts and petticoat, a sign that he wanted you to jump. So you oblige him, knowing he’d catch you regardless, and you silently wrap your legs around him again as his lips find yours once more, your chests moving up and down with labored breaths, but you don't’ need air, you just need him.

“Bed,” you murmur against his feverish lips, in between his dizzying kisses as your fingers slightly pull at his white strands, “P-please,”

Gojo pulls a little bit away, his eyes falling to your lips and then back up, almost in silent questioning. You nod once, needing for him to move, but he gets the gist, a smile, the first one you had seen that night, the first one from him you had seen in over a year, breaks onto his face, and he moves slightly back, nudging you with his nose to kiss him again and you do.

When his thighs hit the back of the bed you feel like a feather as he twists you around in his arms, your hands never disconnecting from his shoulders he gingerly puts you against the mattress, climbing over your body to resume his movements.

The two of you work in tandem, and you know when he’s growing restless, when he wants to explore the rest of your body. His lips trail from your lips to your jaw, pressing wet and splotchy kisses against the skin you have there before his lips move downwards, towards your throat.

You lift your chin a little bit, giving him more access as he sucks your skin into his mouth. You let out a little whimper at the feeling, his teeth grazing your soft skin, and one of your mouth slowly falls open in a little part.

Gojo feels like he’s finally taken his first breath of air when he sees the way he’s marking up your skin, and he knows that once he’s started, there’s doubt he’d ever stop. There’s sixteen months of his lips and touch and mark absent from your skin, and he wants to make up for that.

His hands are at your waist, but his fingers dig into the fabric covering it, frustrated with the barrier that’s still between the two of you.

Your eyes creep open when you feel him pull away, looking at his large body looming over yours with a little pout, one that disappear and melts into a little grin when you see him fumbling with the knot of your cloak, looking even more frustrated with trying to take off your bodice as quickly as possible.

“Here,” you whisper gently, your hand holding his as you move it away, sitting up on your elbows as you undo the knot, shrugging off the layer of warmth as you throw it to the side, “There’s a lace up in the back,” you say, about to twist your body around to show him how to undo the bodice before you hear a loud, almost animated riiip!

You stare down at shock, your chest completely exposed to him, naked and bare, and then to his hands, the culprits for tearing the fabric as if it was a piece of parchment and not heavily lined and stitched top.

Your mouth drops open, hands flying to cover your breasts, but he tsks, swatting your hands aside.

“H-hey!” You exclaim, laughing a little bit at the way his eyes look at you, his brow cocked, heat blossoming across your cheeks and chest, your nipples pebbling in the cold air, “You can’t just - just rip it!”

Gojo chuckles, rolling his eyes, moving up to get closer to your face as he leans down, pressing another searing kiss against your lips.

“I didn’t wait all these months just to be halted by lace,” he mutters, his voice thick and primal and your breathing hitches at the sound, the near growl he has in his tone, and you don’t have it in you to argue with him, desperately needing his hands on you as if you’d die without his touch.

His head dips as he looks down, his eyes finally falling onto your tits, your nipples, your chest that moves up and down with each exhale, and feels his mouth suddenly go dry. He remembers the first time he saw your naked top, remembers that night in the fields vividly, but now that he’s spent so long without being able to look at them, it feels as if he’s seeing you like this for the first time all over again.

“Wait,” you sputter out quickly, your hands going up to your chest again and this time Gojo moves away, quickly and giving you some space as you sit up a little bit against the pillows and backboard, chewing on your lip in embarrassment, “I, um, I might look different, from…from the last time you saw me.”

His white brows pinch together in confusion, but he lets you have the time to gather the words, no matter how much they make you want to see yourself aflame in shame.

The bandages around your hands had slipped off with all the movement, your skin riddles with small scars and bruises that came with chopping and hauling woods. You sometimes looked in your little mirror and saw somebody different.

“My hands,” you say, looking down at them, at the scratches from leaves and twigs, the coarseness on the pads of your fingers from wielding an axe for so many months, and you feel subconscious when his stare falls down to them, “And I…I don’t know, the rest of me, it’s not-”

He cuts you off, pulling your hands away from your chest, but not for the reason you’d expect. He brings them up to his lips, pressing a kiss against each knuckle, the backs of them, the bottoms of your palms, and the only thing you could do is watch with bated breath.

“Do you want to know what I thought when I saw you again? Just outside, in the snow?”

You shake your head, eyes peering at him with an air of curiosity.

“At first I thought that I had died,” he says with a chuckle, “But when I saw you, saw your face, your nose, your eyes, your eyebrows, your cheeks, your hands,” he saws with a little grin, squeezing them in his hands, “I thought that I was dreaming. You looked just like you did when I dreamed of you. And when you woke up, and I saw your eyes again, I felt the happiest I have since the day I last saw you.”

Your shoulders fall, the tension in them dissipating, and you smile gently at him. Of course Gojo would know how to ease your worries, even after a year and counting of not seeing you. And he pauses, a silent talk happening between the two of you, one where he wanted to make sure you were still comfortable. To which you nod, biting your lips a little bit in nervousness, good nervousness, as you do.

His large hands falter, fingers reaching to grab the soft mounds. You watch through your lids that were slightly dropping, the anticipation causing a heat to blossom in your core, and you bite your lip as you wait for him to move.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says in a hushed tone, wonder dripping from his voice as if he was seeing a statue come to life, a painting moving in front of him, “As beautiful as the day I last saw you,” his fingers rub soothing circles on your waist, “My beautiful girl,” he mutters, a small smile on his face that you mirror.

After another second of staring, Gojo makes his first decision, long slender fingers trailing up from your stomach, up your navel and to your left breast, cupping it, his thumb rubbing across your hard nipple as a small sigh escapes his lips.

“G-gods,” he stammers, squeezing the flesh, feeling like a teenage boy rather than the man he’s grown up to be, “Soft,” he chokes out, leaning his head down, “So soft,” he murmurs, his lips latching onto it as you let out a gasp, his tongue rubbing over your areola and your back arches up into him.

He sucks the tit into his mouth, his other hand moving upwards to squeeze and knead the other one, not wanting to leave her unattended. Your lashes flutter at the feeling, mouth dropping open in a quiet sigh when you feel his teeth scrape against your nipple, biting down on it a little bit as your fingers curl into his hair.

“O-oh,” you’re able to say, “‘Toru, oh, oh gods,” you can’t think, can’t formulate a thought as he latches off with a pop, his chin dragging across your chest, his eyes never leaving yours as wrapped his swollen pink lips around your other tit.

He smiles a little bit at the sight of you crumbling from his mouth, flicking your nipple over with his tongue, biting down on this one as well as he moves upwards, sucking the skin around your breast, watching in satisfaction as dark hickeys bloom in the wake.

Your nails rake against his scalp, tugging a little harshly, but his eyes roll back at the feeling, loving the sting.

His lips continue to kiss your chest, moving down from the valley of your breasts and goes down, his spit shining in the candlelight as he kisses the soft skin of your stomach, just above your belly button and then lower, where the tear from your corset ends and the loops of your work skirt begins.

You let out a whine, a keel as he sucks the skin into his mouth.

“You’re s-such a tease,” you stutter out, and he looks at you from his white lashes as his lips make another mark, his tongue moving as he licks the spot, lovingly, and you try to smile back, but your head falls back against the pillow no matter how hard you tried.

“I’m taking my time darling,” he corrects you, his hands moving the hem of your skirt, tugging it down a little bit but eyes eyes squint when he feels some resistance, “I need the woman I love to know just how much I cherish her,” he kisses your hip slowly, “Want her, “another kiss to your lower stomach, “Need her,” and he finishes by moving a little up to press a kiss to your sternum.

You catch your bottom lip beneath your teeth, one hand wringing into the sheets of the bed as you sigh shakily, the heat that’s in your core turning into a fire, one that is growing and burning you from inside out.

Before everything happened, the two of you were burdened with the ever impending need of consummating the marriage. Gojo’s parents were understanding, never pushed the two of you, but the outside world seemed to ponder why your belly hadn’t grown in the months you had been together. Truth be told, you were always nervous, not knowing how to do it, what to do, where things go, and so you’d freak whenever the two of you got close to having sex. So Gojo would always pull back, assuring you that your comfort was the most important thing to him. And though there were nights when he's eating you out, bringing you to ruin on his tongue and fingers, but that was it. But now, it feels different. There was a growing desire in you that felt like it was about to burst the longer you didn’t feel him inside of you.

You can feel the ghost of his touch on your legs, the way his fingers trail slowly up your calves and to your knees, not long before settling on the meat of your thighs, squeezing them as he feels the soft plushness beneath him.

It’s all so maddening.

“‘T-toru?” Your hands search for his, your chest moving with each labored breath, and you feel his hands move upwards, lacing his fingers between yours as his eyes search for what it was you wanted, “‘Toru, please, oh, please, I need you,” you murmur weakly, “Need you i-in me, please,” you beg, and see the way his pupils grow, his eyes barely even blue when you say the words inches away from his lips.

He lets out an animalistic grown, his eyes rolling back in his head as he plants a sloppy kiss against your lips, his hands falling down to the waistline of your skit, fingers fumbling to find the loop before he gives up, scrunching up the fabric between his fingers before you hear another rip. Looking down you see your skirt in tatters, the fabric looking like it had been mauled by a bear, and watch as he bundles it up and throws it to the side somewhere.

You go to argue but he raises a brow, wondering how you expected him to stay calm and put together when you utter such filthy words in his ear.

It takes you a second to find that you’re now completely naked beneath him, and while that doesn’t cause you to cover up the way you expected, you find yourself pouting a little bit, something that Gojo notices.

“What?” He asks, his hand immediately cupping the side of your face, worried, “Is everything okay? Do you want to stop?”

But you shake your head, hands pawing at his coat, nails scratching as you try to unloop the buttons.

“‘S not fair,” you mumble, pointing to his chest and then to yours, your lips quirking up a little bit as your pout deepens, eyes all wide and open for him, the way you know makes his words turn to slurred speech, “I’m all bare and you’re…not…s’not fair ‘Toru,” there a little whine in your voice, one that causes his cheeks to go pink.

He grins, kissing your cheek apologetically as he nods in agreement.

“You’re absolutely right darling,” he says, able to make quick work at tearing his coat off, swift finger fumbling to get his arms out of the sleeves, his hands going the either side of the tunic beneath him to lift it off and above his head, but the sudden touch of your hands against his skin makes him stop.

He looks down to where your fingers are lying, atop his neck, your eyes wavering when you hook something out from underneath the dress shirt.

How could you have forgotten?

You think to yourself, looking at the ring he had resting on the delicate gold chain. His wedding ring, the one he had told you ages ago he keeps around his neck so that it does fall off during training. Your fingers rub against it, feeling the cold sting of the gold, a familiar thing. But that wasn’t what caught your attention. No, your eyes fall to something next to it.

The matching ring. Yours.

You let out a little shaky gasp, looking up to Gojo to only see him staring back at you, trying to gauge your reaction.

“I…” he sighs, holding your hand in his, the one that was holding onto your ring, “I thought-”

But you don’t let him finish his rambling, pulling him down by the chain of the necklace as you slam your lips against his, a new set of tears sprouting in your eyes as you feel the rings dance around your neck.

Your fingers curl into his hair, digging them deep as your tears wet his cheek, your lips trembling against his as you hook a leg around his waist, your other hand holding onto the side of his face as you kiss him feverishly. You need him near you, need him to know just how much you have missed him, longed for him, need him.

But after a few seconds pass, he pulls away from you and your head moves up to chase him, but he sits up completely, your leg falling away from his waist as you watch him move his hands up to the necklace, tugging at it as it unclips from the back.

You watch silently as he slides your ring off of the chain, holding it in the palm of his hand as it shines brightly in the candlelight. His white lashes flutter against his cheek as he twists the ring around.

“May I?” Gojo says quietly, and you falter, looking down at your hand.

The hand that you’ve lived by for a while, using it for cutting logs and trees, to collect twigs and leaves. The hand riddles with scars and bruises, some fading, some new. The hand that always felt light, no matter how many things you were carrying in it. The reason you always knew, but never wanted to admit it.

You bring it closer to his own, watch as he turns the ring around to face your finger. You feel like the seconds have turned into hours, your mind flashing to when the last time he placed this ring on your finger, when you were a little bit younger and naive, not knowing he’d be placing it on your same finger nearly two years later, but this time out of love and not from an arrangement.

When it finally slides on you sigh a breath of relief, a tear escaping the corner of your eye, falling into your hairline as you hold the hand up, admiring its lost component that you’ve missed so dearly.

“My wife,” he whispers softly, almost to himself as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, bringing your hand up to his lips as he presses a kiss that lays over the ring, holding onto your hand tight, giving it a squeeze as he gently set it back down on the bed. He places the necklace back over his neck, taking his tunic off with one fluid motion after it clasped into place.

You smile, full, content, and you lie back down against the pillows after a minute passed, your legs spreading a little bit to make room for him between them. His touch goes back up to your thighs, fingers searing in their place as his gaze finally, finally, drops down to your aching, burning core.

You watch as he undoes the buckle of his pants, his trousers being kicked off, his eyes never leaving your glistening folds, and you feel your heart rattle in your ribcage, waiting to just jump out.

Your eyes rake over his naked torso. Gods, he looked even bigger if that was possible. He riffs with even more muscles all across his chest, his arms, and his abs, looking even more pronounced from when you last saw him. His shoulders stand broad and sturdy, a thick vein running across the white trail of hair leading down, and you feel yourself growing wetter at the thought. You’re so busy staring at him you don’t even realize that he too has put his focus down. Down to where you need him the most.

Your mouth goes dry at the sight. It’s the first time you’ve seen it in its entirety. Sometimes you’ve seen the outline from afar, feeling the length from layers of his clothes, but never like this, never so raw.

It’s long, you think, and though you’ve never seen anyone else cock before, you know this must be above what was normal. It curved upwards, not fully standing up from how heavy it was. You wanted to guess that it was at least eight inches, and gods, he was thick. His cockhead spurted more precum, pink, almost red, and it looked like it was about to burst.

Little white hairs grow from its base, soft and plush, and your eyes almost blur from lust at the sight.

Gojo scratches the back of his head almost in embarrassment, a little flush to his cheeks as he snaps his fingers in front of your face to get you to look back at him and not his little friend downstairs. You gulp, slowly finding his gaze as you stare at his pink face. A blush had traveled across his cheeks and went to his nose and jaw. Your head tilted slightly, bottom lip caught underneath your teeth as you squinted a little bit.

Was he…shy?

“Are you…” You almost want to laugh, but stop yourself, a questioning look in your eyes as you sit up a little bit, resting on your elbows as you grin, “Are you blushing?”

Gojo rolls his eyes at your teasing tone, pinching your waist as you squeal a little bit, a fit of laughter falling from your lips when he refuses to answer. Though he tries to look tough, his demeanor cracks when he hears the musical sound of you giggling, a new noise that seems to bring a fresh wave of colors back into his dull grey colored life.

“I know you haven’t,” he swallows, his throat bobbing when he rubs a thumb slowly up and down your thigh, a comforting touch, “I know you’ve never done this before. And if you want to wait-”

“No,” you say instantly, shaking your head, “No, I want this. I want you. I…I need you, Saotru, I need you so bad I think I’m going to start going crazy if you don’t…” you trail off, swallowing thickly as you look back to his groin, and your fingers itch to hold it, to touch it, to feel the velvety skin beneath yours.

Gojo’s mouth goes dry, his lips parting as his pupils grow again.

You need him. You need him and oh gods does he need you. He thinks his heart will stop if he doesn’t have your warmth circling him, pulling him closer to you.

He nods slowly, gnawing on his lip as he continues to rub soothing circles on your thighs, scratching his jaw as he thinks about how to go about this. Though he hates to even think about it, this wasn’t his first time the way it was yours. But it was his first time with the woman he loved, and it felt like he was learning how to do it all over again.

“O-okay,” he says shakily, and here he looks like a young man in love, not the Northern warrior people forced him to become, just your Satoru, “I’ll go slow, okay? Hold my hands, squeeze them as tight as you want. If it becomes too much…” his brow furrow, heart lurching at the thought of hurting you.

“Then I’ll let you know,” you finish with a smile, a promising one as you lean up to rest your forehead against his, “And I’m a strong girl,” you say with a little tease, trying to relax the tension, “It takes a lot to bring me down.”

Gojo chuckles, nodding at your words as he leans a little closer to peck at your lips. You fall back down to the pillows, your legs spreading again as his hands move away form your thighs, going to your cunt, spreading some of his slick on them as he brings it to his cock, breathing slightly through his teeth as his fingers make contact with it, lubing it up as he lines it up with your entrance.

He looks at you once, and you nod, smiling, telling him you were ready.

He pushes the tip in, and feels your walls clench instantly around him. The stretch is there, and your eyes flutter shut, his hands traveling up through the sheets to grab at yours, your fingers lacing together as he brings them to your head, watching your reactions, fearful that it was too much.

But you nod again, wanting him to continue.

He pushes his way in little by little, your tight cunt fluttering and squeezing around him with each inch, biting down on your lips to keep the sounds in. It’s not too much, but you know that if Gojo heard he’d stop it immediately. Because while it does hurt a little bit, the sting is good, and the more he lets you settle in it, the more it actually becomes pleasurable.

Gojo lets his cock sink into, letting you take all the time you need to adjust to his size, squeezing his hands as your fingers dig into his skin.

“G-good? Do you want to stop?” He’s able to bite out, feeling like he was about to cum with the way you’re clenching around him. But his eyes are still filled with worry, not knowing what you were feeling with the way you were staying quiet.

You take a deep breath, biting the inside of your cheek as you slowly open your eyes, looking down to where your bodies were connected, and a little gasp escapes your lips when you see that he’s somehow managed to fit all of himself inside your tight walls, your cunt spasming around his girthy cock.

You moan, mouth falling open as you grip onto his hands again, quickly nodding, needing him to move.

And Gojo takes it.

He slowly begins to pull out, your cunt weeping wetly with his absence, and he gives it a second before he slams back in.

“Umph!” You whine, eyesight going white when his cockhead hit the spongy part of your cunt, nudging at it as you feel achingly full, a good full, “Oooh, oh, ‘Toru, it’s…ohh,” and he knew it was a good oh because you were growing wetter around him, your slick staining his dick and the sheets beneath you.

He pulls his hips back out before he goes back in, creating a steady rhythm that makes your legs feel useful, wrapping around him to keep him as close to your middle as possible. You can hear the squelch whenever he pushes himself back inside, and can feel the way you spurt around him.

“You’re doing great darling,” he says encouragingly, praising you as your finger clench and unclench, “Doin’ so great for me, you know? So perfect, my perfect wife, fuck, oh, s-shit,”

He pulls the back of your hand to his lips, kissing it before he lets go, bringing your now empty hand up to his shoulders, his own hand falling in between your bodies as his finger find your clit, rubbing and pinching at it with such a speed that you feel like you’re finally going towards the light.

“S-so tight,” he moans out, head falling down to your chest as he takes in a nipple between his teeth, sucking your tit into his mouth, needing something to with his tongue, “You’re s’warm, fuck, it’s so, so fucking good,”

You nod feverishly at his words, mewling in agreement, the ability to talk dying right in front of you, your walls turning to mush the more he slams himself inside of you.

It feels like lightning when his fingers continue their movements on your pulsating bud, his cock molding your cunt into its shape, your hot warmth trapping him inside like a honeypot, barely allowing him to move but pulling him back inside whenever he pulls away, needing to chase after the intoxicating feeling.

You feel like crying and laughing, never expecting to have this moment happen. You want to pinch yourself, to see if maybe you were dreaming. You feel all your emotions wash up as Gojo kisses your chest, feel the excruciating pain you first felt when you ran away, the lonely feeling when you were surviving on your own, to live by yourself, pretending that he’d be there to wake you up.

And sure, you dreamed that you’d see him again, but you never thought he’d believe you, let alone forgive you. You never thought he’d be like he always was, kind and caring, loving you with such tenderness that it feels like you never left. You never thought he’d fall in love with you twice, but maybe that was your biggest mistake. Because Gojo Satoru never stopped loving you just like you never stopped loving him.

You feel tears prickle as your eyes, your nose scrunching up to hide your sniffles, a sound that quickly catches his attention.

He looks up from your sternum, fear flooding through his eyes when he sees the tears that roll down the side of your face, the watery look of your eyes and the way you turn your head away so that he wouldn’t see you.

He instantly stops, pulling out of you as his hands quickly go to your cheeks, tapping your jaw, worried, anxious as he begs for you to look at him.

“Hey, hey,” he mutters quickly, his hands slightly trembling, thinking he had hurt you terribly, “We can stop darling, it’s okay, don’t worry,” but you shake your head, a tremor in your lips as you look at him, hands covering your face as you feel tears wet your finger.

“It’s not that,” you whisper, choking on a cry, “‘S not that, it feels good, really good,” you add, sniffing again as your nose scrunches up. Gojo falters, rubbing away your stray tears, eyes looking everywhere to figure out what was wrong. He lets you find your words, even if it takes a minute.

“I…I just,” you sigh, pushing your lips together tightly as you look at him, “I missed you so much Satoru, I m-missed you, and,” you feel his eyes gloss over, “And I’m sorry I didn’t write o-or tell you anything. I love you,” you tilt your head up slightly to kiss him softly, “I love you so much. I know this isn’t what-”

“No,” he interrupts, shaking his head to cut you off, knowing that you might spiral, “I don’t care about the time, darling, I don’t care how long it took to have you again,” a tear off his falls on your cheek, “Just that I have you again. That I have the woman I love back in my arms is enough for me,” he promises and you laugh wetly, rubbing at your eyes.

He kisses your tears away, balancing himself above you as he nudges his nose against yours, something he does when he wants to catch your attention, when he knows you’re lost in your own mind.

You smile again, your hand falling in between your bodies to line himself up again with your entrance. He stutters, going to stop you, but you shake your head, wanting this, wanting this more than anything, and let your legs wrap around him again.

“I love you,” you whisper against his lips, feeling his cockhead push a little bit again past your aching walls.

His head drops down to your chest, not wanting you to see him break. Not wanting you to see the way he cracks because he never thought he’d hear you say those words again, never thought he’d see your lips form around those tender words, to give him such a divine feeling.

“I love you,” he says huskily, gasping it out as he sink in a little deeper, “I love you so much, so so much,” he kisses your chin, “So much that even if it took a century to find you I’d still love you as much as the day I first loved you,”

You giggle a little bit, kissing him messily as you moan against his lips, your cunt stretching again to fit his size, cradling the side of his face in your hands.

“I’m…I’m never letting go of y-you ever again,” you stammer, a little moan escaping you when a vein scratches deliciously against the side of your pulsing walls, “‘M yours, S-satoru, all yours.”

He groans, hands finding purchase on your waist as his eyes squeeze shut, too many feelings, all good feelings, coursing through him.

“Everything I have, e-eveyrthing I am and will be is yours,” he says, his voice breaking, “I was always yours to begin with.”

Your nails scratch down the flexing and large muscles of his back, leaving red lines in their wake as he picks up his face, your own tears, spit, juices, everything, mixing together as you moan in tandem.

“So good!” You whine, toes curling, your arm wrapping around his neck to pull him down to your chest until you were flush against each other, kissing against him messily, licking into his open mouth as you moan even louder when he angles his hips a certain way to reach even deep inside of you, if that was even possible, “T-think…think I’m ‘gonna…!”

That same buzz grows, that feeling of an incoming orgasm approaching you quickly. You were warned that it was difficult for a woman to finish during sex, and some of your friends often told you how they usually lay there until their husbands finished. But it wasn’t like that with Gojo, not at all. You have no idea how much time has passed, but it feels far quicker than usual.

His fingers never give up their pace on your clit, and your walls clench around him, a new feeling growing inside of you.

“‘Toru, I think I’m ‘gonna c-come,” you hiccup, your orgasm building up, “I t-think…”

He nods, biting your bottom lip between his teeth, feeling his own release creeping up on him, feeling the white hot flash grow in his groins.

“I know darling, I k-know,” he mutters, kissing the side of your mouth as his motions quicken, needing to feel you come with him, “I know, let go, come on, I know you can, let go for me darling, there it is.”

You let out your last moan when you feel your orgasm wash over you.

It’s blinding, exhilarating, and for a second you think you nearly died from how good it was.

You spray around his cock, gushing with your release. It wets his balls, dripping down onto the sheets, his abs shining wet from the way you squirted all over him. You want to feel embarrassed, but quite frankly can’t because of how utterly spent you feel.

Gojo opens his mouth in a silent exhale when his own orgasm happens, spilling his cum deep inside of you, painting your walls white with his seed as he spurts, seeming like it was never ending.

You feel yourself clench around him at the feeling, your entire body feeling even warmer at his cum reaching deep inside of you. He came so much that it overflows from inside, coming out from the sides of your cunt, mixing with your own juices as the two of you try to calm down from your mind-shattering climaxes.

And despite how tired you feel, a giddy smile makes its way onto your face.

Your husband is right next to you. You could have only dreamed this moment happening.

Gojo looks down at you, smiling too, his head tilting to the side.

“W-what?” He asks with a quiet chuckle, his cock still nestled inside you, and the thought makes you feel even giddier, turning your face to the side, smushing it against the pillows to mute your bursts of laughter.

But it’s no use, because Gojo leans down to the side of your face, kissing your cheek and jaw gingerly as he smiles against your skin, wiping the excess tears away from the corners of your eyes.

“What’s got you laughing, hm?” He says, his voice slightly muffled against your cheek and you giggle even louder, unable to control it, his fingers not helping as they place tickling and fleeting touches all over our naked and sweaty skin. He can’t help himself and laughs too, the sound hearty and loud, bouncing off the walls as you squirm around, your lips pulled wide, a toothy smile etched permanently onto your face.

“S-stop!” You wheeze out, his fingers everywhere, your arms, legs, thighs, stomach, fast and unforgiving, trying to squeeze every but of the wonderful sound out of you so he could bottle it up and keep it forever, “S-satoru, s-stop! Please!”

You push at his chest, eyes bright and full of mirth, looking back at the man you loved, his smile bright and blinding. You want to have this moment forever, over and over again, never ending, and you never want it to end. He finally pulls away, looking down at you with such adoration and love in his shining eyes that you feel like you’re about to go blind.

He pulls himself out of your warmth, kissing the back of his teeth when you pulse around him again, and his limp cock hangs satisfied. He pushes the mixture of his cum and your juices back in with his thumb, something primal filling him seeing you full of his seed.

Your legs twitch, slapping his curious hand away when it starts to trail back up to your clit, and watch him send you a little wink, a little sign for what’s to come later. Not now, though, because he sees the way your eyes are drooping, your hands resting on your stomach as you pat the empty space next to you.

Gojo obliges, falling down on the rumpled sheets, turning to the side to look at you.

You sigh, happy, full, and breaking at the seams with love. He lets the same sigh out, his pink lips pulled into an easy grin, months of exhaustion washing away from his body as he loops an arm under your waist, tugging you closer to his chest.

The two of you stay there in comfortable silence, grieving the months you lost, celebrating the moments just spent together, finding each other over and over again even if it tore you apart in the process.

He kisses your hairline, your forehead, the corners of your eyes. You preen like a cat, humming when you feel him kiss your cheek and your lips, pressing his last kiss to the tip of your nose, something he used to do when you were about to go to sleep.

“Sleep now” he whispers against the side of your head, pulling the blanket to cover your bodies, his hold of you never letting go, “I’ll be here when you wake up,” he smiles, pausing before saying, “I promise,”and you smile softly, craning your head up to look at him.

You fight back the tears, at the thought of waking up next to him, just like you always dreamed you would.

“You promise?” You murmur, feeling one last tear fall, one tear of joy, utter joy, and he catches it with his thumb, his blue eyes wavering like a clear sky without a singular cloud, and you watch as his throat bobs, eyes roaming all over your face, still can’t believing you were real. He hums deeply, tipping your chin up to meet him in one last longing kiss, lips moving gently along one another.

“I promise.”

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gojocenteredblog · 5 months ago

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★ not that satoru is incapable of doing that himself, but it’s just something about you unwrapping his blindfold excites him. maybe it’s the way your delicate fingertips touch his skin as you carefully undo it for him, or how he gets to have you so close to him as his thumbs caress your soft cheeks. and since your face is super close to his, he takes the chance and attacks your face and neck with kisses, showering you with love and affection.

he even fakes being too exhausted to undo it himself and begs you to do it for him. you know he’s very much able to do it on his own, but you’re weak to his pleas so you end up doing it anyways.

at this point, he’s just obsessed with the idea. sometimes he knots it extra tight on purpose so that you take more time unwrapping it, which means that your touch will last longer. so it’s been something that he enjoys quite a lot, because he simply loves having your hands all over him.

back ★ jjk m.list

𝜗𝜚 taglist: @unriding @lxnarphase @sylusdoll @satorurize @itoshivy @17020 @luv-lies @suguru-getos @kasukuna @hellokittyish @gojoscinnamonroll

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gojocenteredblog · 5 months ago

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HOW TO FAKE DATE A DOCTOR — SATORU GOJO

pairing — doctor!satoru gojo x fem!reader

summary — for six months, you've watched dr. satoru gojo order the sweetest coffee on your menu every morning at exactly 7:15 AM. for six months, you've convinced yourself his intense stares must mean he's spotted something medically concerning about you—maybe a suspicious mole or concerning symptom. but when a desperate white lie about a fake boyfriend results in him volunteering to play the part at your family's christmas dinner, what begins as a simple pretend relationship might just turn into something real.

word count — 9 k

genre/tags — coffee shop AU, holiday romance, fake dating, friends to lovers, mutual pining, slow burn, fluff, idiots in love, reader is a med student and barista, gojo is a cardiologist, age difference (reader is 25/gojo early 30s)

warnings — 16+ ONLY. contains suggestive sexual content, non-graphic medical talk

author's note — hey lovelies, welcome to my first attempt at a holiday romance. this was meant to be a short drabble but somehow turned into this 9 k words of pure fluff and pining. it's my little christmas gift to you all hehe. whether you're celebrating with family, working holiday shifts, or just enjoying a quiet day, hope this makes you smile. thank you for reading, and merry christmas !! <3 (fanart in the header)

masterlist

You first noticed him six months ago.

It wasn't just because he was strikingly handsome, with hair the color of fresh snow and the bluest eyes you'd ever seen, though that certainly didn't hurt. It wasn't even because of his white coat and the stethoscope casually draped around his neck, marking him as one of the doctors from the nearby hospital.

No, what caught your attention was the way he looked at you.

Every morning, like clockwork, the bell above the door would chime at precisely 7:15 AM, and Dr. Satoru Gojo would walk into your café. He'd order the sweetest drink on your menu (always with extra whipped cream), and while you prepared it, his eyes would follow your every movement.

It wasn't creepy or uncomfortable. And it definitely wasn't flirting — at least, you didn't think it was. Perhaps he saw something, a suspicious mole you'd never noticed, and now he was trying to figure out how to tell the coffee girl she’s dying without ruining her morning rush.

That had to be it.

You’d catch his gaze lingering when he thought you weren't looking. Sometimes, he'd tilt his head slightly, a small, almost imperceptible smile playing on his lips. It made you wonder what he was thinking. Was he judging your latte art? Probably. You were still working on that.

But when you turned around to give him his iced vanilla latte with extra whipped cream and three shots of caramel (it never varied, not once in six months), he'd break his smile to you, his gaze softening for a second, and then his fingers would brush against yours as you handed him the paper cup.

He always thanked you with “Much appreciated”. It made your heart skip a beat, if you'd be honest. Not that you read all too much into it of course. And so for six months, this had been your routine.

5:30 AM: Arrive at the café.

6:00 AM: Open up, prep for the day.

7:13 AM: Start making his drink because you knew he'd walk in exactly two minutes later.

7:15 AM: Heart fluttering slightly as your hand brushed his as you gave him his order.

10:00 AM: Shift end.

10:30 AM: Rush to classes.

Some mornings, he’d arrive in wrinkled scrubs, the faint scent of antiseptic clinging to him. Other days, it was a tailored dress shirt, sometimes with a matching tie. But the routine never changed.

Same order, same time, the same easy smile that would soften slightly when you remembered his order without him having to say it. Not that it was hard to begin with.

“Someone’s got a secret admirer,” Maki would say, nudging you with her elbow as Dr. Gojo left. You’d roll your eyes, but a faint blush crept up your neck anyway.

Between customers, you'd try to squeeze in some studying. The early morning shift wasn't exactly ideal, but it paid better, and you needed every cent you could get for your pre-med textbooks. Those things cost more than your rent, it felt like.

Your anatomy textbook usually lay open behind the counter, hidden from customers' view but accessible during slower moments. Sometimes, when the morning rush died down, you'd catch Dr. Gojo's eyes flickering to the pages as you made his latte. His expression would shift slightly, but he never commented on it.

You wondered sometimes if he was judging your highlighting technique (chaotic at best) or your margin notes (mostly question marks). He must have gone through all this years ago, probably with much more grace than your current fumbling through medical terminology.

The café job barely covered your expenses — between tuition, rent, and those damn textbooks — but at least it was flexible with your class schedule. Your manager understood when you needed to switch shifts for exams, and the free coffee helped during all-nighters.

Your coworkers thought you were crazy for taking such early shifts. "No one should be awake at 5:30 AM," they'd say. But they didn't understand the quiet peace of morning prep, the satisfaction of perfect latte art, or the way certain blue eyes would crinkle at the corners when you got his order just right.

It was a small thing, a fleeting smile, a brush of fingertips, but it was enough to make the early mornings, the aching feet, the constant struggle, almost worth it.

Not that you stuck to this schedule just for him. Obviously not. The extra dollar per hour for opening shift was the real motivator. The fact that it coincided with Dr. Gojo's apparent coffee schedule was just... coincidence.

Sometimes, during chaotic study sessions between customers, you'd catch him watching you mouth medical terms to yourself as you steamed milk. His eyes would linger on your textbook, then flick back to your face with that same intense look that made you wonder if he was counting your remaining days or something—or still trying to figure out if that one mole on your cheek was turning malignant.

The morning you had your anatomy midterm, your textbook sat next to the register, full of sticky notes and frantic annotations. You saw him notice it, saw something shift in his expression as he took in the obvious signs of exam stress. That day, he left an extra large tip with a small note that just said "Good luck."

It was probably just pity. He'd been through med school. He knew the hell you were going through. That had to be it. Absolutely. No other explanation.

That’s what you told yourself, anyway, as you added the note into your wallet, shoving it down next to a crumpled grocery list and a faded movie ticket stub, as if burying it under a pile of mundane objects could somehow bury the flutter in your chest.

For six months, this had been your life. Balancing early mornings, late classes, endless studying, and the mystery of a doctor who looked at you like you were a puzzle he couldn't quite solve.

So when he finally broke pattern that random rainy monday morning, it wasn't with some dramatic revelation about your health you’d imagined. Instead, he tilted his head slightly while waiting for his usual and said, "You changed your hair."

You nearly dropped the caramel syrup. After six months of intense stares and loaded silences, after convincing yourself he was cataloging your symptoms or contemplating your mortality, he was commenting on your hair?

"Oh." Your hand instinctively went to the ends you'd trimmed over the weekend. "Yeah, just a few inches."

"It suits you." He said it so casually, like he hadn't just shattered half a year of mysterious doctor mystique with three words. Then, with that same matter-of-fact tone, "The pathophysiology textbook you were reading last week—Robbins, right? It’s really good. Especially the part about metaplasia. Interesting stuff."

And just like that, the spell was broken. No terminal diagnosis. No earth-shattering revelations. Just a doctor who apparently noticed haircuts and had opinions about medical textbooks.

The sudden normalcy of it all was almost jarring. For months, you’d been half-convinced he was silently cataloging your every freckle, every mole, every perceived imperfection, convinced he was about to deliver some devastating news. Now? He was talking about metaplasia. It was almot—anticlimactic.

And, if you were being honest, a little embarrassing. All those covert checks in the reflection of the espresso machine, all those frantic Google searches for “atypical nevi”—for this?

You almost wanted to laugh.

After that day, your morning routine shifted slightly. He still came in at exactly 7:15, still ordered the same diabetis-inducing latte, still watched you work with those intense blue eyes the color of glacial ice. But now he'd occasionally comment on your study materials, or mention an interesting case that related to whatever chapter you were currently highlighting.

"Cardiac arrhythmias today?" he'd ask, spotting your textbook. "Had a case of atrial fibrillation yesterday. The patient presented with…" He’d then launch into a quick explanation, sketching a diagram on a napkin that somehow made more sense than three hours of lecture on the same topic.

Your coworkers were almost disappointed by this development. "That's it?" Maki had said when you told her. "Six months of smoldering looks and he just... helps you study?"

But somehow, it felt right. The mysterious doctor with pretty eyes turned out to be just a man who noticed details and perhaps had a soft spot for struggling med students.

He still made your heart do that stupid flutter thing when his fingers brushed yours during the handoff, but now you had a perfectly logical explanation for that of course—the vagus nerve or some other equally fascinating cardiovascular phenomenon he'd just explained.

That had to be it.

Some mornings, when the café was quiet and you were stumped by a concept, he'd even linger a few minutes after getting his order. He’d lean against the counter, close enough that you could smell the faint scent of his cologne, gesturing with his cup while breaking down complex medical theories into digestible pieces, somehow making autoimmune disorders sound as simple as iced latte recipes.

"You'll make a good doctor," he said one morning, completely out of nowhere and your cheeks flushed a deep crimson.

Your relationship—if you could even call it that—settled into something comfortably in-between. More than customer and barista, less than friends, but with a rhythm all its own. He'd quiz you while you made his usual, turning morning coffee runs into study sessions.

"Name three complications of chronic hypertension," he'd say while you pumped caramel into his cup.

"Increased risk of heart attack, stroke, and kidney disease," you'd reply, adding the extra shot of espresso he never actually ordered but always appreciated.

"Good. Now tell me about secondary causes."

One random Tuesday morning, however, the bell didn't chime at 7:15. You glanced at the clock, then back at the door.

7:16.

7:17.

A knot of unease tightened in your stomach. It was ridiculous, really. Why did you even care? He was just a customer. A regular customer, yes, but still just a customer. It wasn't like you were waiting for him or anything. You were just—used to the routine. That was all.

But despite your attempts at rationalization, a small, nagging worry began to gnaw at you. Had something happened? Was he okay? You found yourself staring at the door, your hand hovering over the espresso machine, your usual movements faltering slightly. You even messed up a latte, the foam swirling into a sad, lopsided blob instead of the usual pretty rosetta.

At 7:20, just as you were about to convince yourself he’d just overslept and that you were being completely ridiculous, the bell finally rang. He rushed in, slightly out of breath, his cheeks flushed. "Sorry I'm late," he said, his voice a little rushed. "Crazy morning at the hospital."

He looked like he’d run all the way, which was odd. Why would he run? It’s not like his coffee was that important. Right? And yet, your stupid heart did a little flip at the sight of him, a traitorous swell of warmth blooming in your chest. He made it. He was here.

He stayed extra long that morning. After the rush died down, he listened to you recite your flashcards, correcting your pronunciation of medical terms with a patience that made you wonder if he moonlighted as a professor. It was a strange sort of intimacy, this shared moment of slow study amidst the busy morning rush and the soft hum of the refrigerators.

And you never wanted that morning to end.

Your coworkers had stopped teasing you about him—mostly—and started asking if he could explain their own health questions instead. Then came the random stormy Wednesday that changed everything.

The morning had started normally enough—he arriving at 7:15 sharp, you already having his sugar latte ready. But the sky had opened up while he was waiting, rain drumming against the café windows. It wasn’t a gentle shower. It was a deluge, the kind that turned streets into rivers in minutes.

"Did you bring an umbrella?" he asked, watching you glance at the downpour.

"No," you sighed, already dreading the soggy walk to campus. "I checked the forecast last night—it said sunny all day." You internally cursed the weather app.

"When does your shift end?"

"Huh? Oh, uhm 10 AM. I have microbiology at 10:30."

His lips twitched into a faint smile and he left without another word. You tried not to feel disappointed—what had you expected? It's not like he could control the weather.

But at 10 AM sharp, as you were pulling your jacket tighter and preparing to make a run for it, you spotted him through the rain-streaked windows. He was standing outside the café in his white coat, holding a large dark blue umbrella.

Your heart definitely did more than flutter this time.

"Ready?" he asked when you emerged, as if waiting in the pouring rain for some barista was perfectly normal doctor behavior.

"You didn't have to—"

"Can't have my favorite barista catching pneumonia," he said. "Besides, I'm heading that direction anyway." You knew for a fact the hospital was in the opposite direction.

The walk to campus was suddenly—intimate. It was strange being this close to him. You’d seen him every morning for months, but always across the counter, a safe distance separating you. Now, you were walking side-by-side, the scent of his cologne so close it made it hard to focus on anything but his proximity, to say the least.

"So, what are you studying in Microbiology?" he asked, breaking the silence.

"We're covering bacterial pathogenesis this week," you replied, and the conversation drifted naturally to a discussion of how different pathogens could affect various organ systems like it was normal small talk.

As other pedestrians passed, their own umbrellas bobbing and weaving, he’d subtly pull you closer. Each time he did, your breath would catch in your throat, and a fresh wave of warmth would wash over you. You were grateful for his height, because you were certain your cheeks were flushed a deep shade of red.

It was absurd, how flustered you were by such a simple act, but the feeling of his arm occasionally brushing against yours, the shared intimacy of the small space beneath the umbrella, was enough to send your heart racing.

Desperate to focus on something else, you blurted out, "What kind of doctor are you, anyway? I never actually asked."

"Cardiology," he replied simply.

“Cardiology,” you repeated, the word lingering on your tongue. A doctor of the heart. When you reached the medical sciences building, he paused, lowering the umbrella slightly. The rain had begun to ease, but the air still smelled wet and clean.

"Thanks," you said, meeting his gaze. "For the umbrella escort."

"Anytime." That soft smile again, the one that made your heart do a stupid little skip again.

As you watched him walk away, umbrella tilted against the rain, you realized something had shifted. Maybe you weren't quite friends, maybe you weren't quite anything definable, but whatever this was—it felt like the beginning of something. Something more than just sharing an umbrella on rainy days.

⋆꙳•❅•̩❅*̩‧͙ *̩❆₊˚｡❆

Winter arrived on a random thursday morning, transforming rain into snow and turning your early morning walks to work into arctic expeditions.

It was during one of these frigid mornings, while you were preparing Dr. Gojo's usual order and the steam from the espresso machines fogging up the frost-covered windows, that your phone rang. Your mother's contact photo flashed on the screen.

You answered with your phone pressed between ear and shoulder, still working the machines. "Hi, Mom."

"Sweetheart! I was just planning Christmas dinner. You're bringing someone this year, right? That nice boy from your anatomy class you mentioned?"

You winced, catching Dr. Gojo's raised eyebrow from where he stood at the counter. "Mom—"

"Because Aunt Marie's daughter just got engaged, and you know how she gets—"

"My boyfriend's actually busy with hospital rotations," you blurted out, immediately wanting to punch yourself. "He's, uh, very dedicated to his work."

"Boyfriend? Why didn't you tell me? What's his name? What does he—"

"Sorry, Mom, huge line forming, gotta go!" You hung up, letting your forehead thump against the coffee machine with a groan.

"That sounded stressful," Dr. Gojo commented, amusement clear in his voice.

You looked up to find him watching you with that slight smile that always made you shiver. "Just my mom being... my mom." You resumed making his latte. "She's convinced that at twenty-five, I'm practically a spinster."

"Ah." He tilted his head. "And this fictional boyfriend with hospital rotations?"

Your cheeks heated. "Seemed easier than explaining why I'm still single. Between work, classes, and studying, I barely have time to sleep, let alone date." You handed him his usual. "Plus, now she'll stop trying to set me up with every eligible male she meets through her book club."

"A creative solution," he said, taking a sip. "Though hospital rotations over Christmas? Sounds like a terrible boyfriend." A playful smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.

"Yeah, well, imaginary men are often disappointing." You started wiping down the counter, needing something to do with your hands. "At least this way I'll have a few weeks of peace before I have to tell her we broke up."

"Sounds like you've done this before," he observed, watching you attack an imaginary coffee stain with perhaps too much force.

"Is it that obvious?" You sighed, abandoning your fake cleaning. "Last year he was studying abroad. The year before that, he was sick. I'm running out of excuses, honestly. Pretty sure my mom's stopped believing me, but she plays along because it's less awkward than admitting we both know I'm lying."

He made a thoughtful sound, then pulled out his prescription pad (why did doctors always carry those around anyway?). You watched, confused, as he scribbled something down and slid it across the counter.

"Here," he said. "My number. Call me during Christmas dinner."

You stared at him. "What?"

"Well, your imaginary boyfriend should at least make an effort, don't you think?" His eyes held that familiar amusement. "I'll tell your mom all about my very important hospital rounds, maybe throw in some medical words. Make it convincing."

You stared at him, mouth slightly agape. Was he… offering to pretend to be your boyfriend? You couldn't quite process what was happening.

"You know," he said, after you'd probably been quiet for too long, "some of us actually do work hospital rotations over Christmas."

"I know, I just—" You stopped, realizing how her words might have sounded. "Oh god, I didn't mean to imply… I know you probably have to work during the holidays too, I wasn't trying to—"

"Someone has to make sure all those Christmas dinner caused heart attacks are properly treated," he interrupted, that familiar, almost-smirk back on his face, easing the tension in your shoulders. "Though I do get Christmas morning off this year."

You couldn't tell if he was trying to make you feel better about your lie, your accidental insult, or just sharing information. With Dr. Gojo, it was often hard to tell. After a moment of stunned silence, you managed, "Are you… sure?"

"Perfectly.”

"Thank you," you said, finally finding your voice as you picked up the slip of paper. "Really, thank you."

"Anytime," he said, that familiar, soft smile gracing his lips. "Consider it a Christmas gift. From your very dedicated, albeit fictional, boyfriend."

As you watched him leave, coffee in hand and snowflakes catching in his white hair. Even if he was probably going to tease you endlessly about your fictional, workaholic boyfriend for weeks to come, a small, stupid part of you was already looking forward to it.

⋆꙳•❅•̩❅*̩‧͙ *̩❆₊˚｡❆

The Christmas dinner was a random Friday night.

The table, laden with enough food to feed a small army, was surrounded by the usual suspects and the dinner turned out to be exactly as excruciating as you'd expected. You'd barely made it through the appetizers before the interrogation began.

"So, this boyfriend of yours," Aunt Marie started. "What did you say he does again?"

"He's a doctor," you said into your mashed potatoes.

"A doctor!" your mother brightened. "You never mentioned that part."

Your cousin Sarah leaned forward. "What kind of doctor? Where did he study? How did you meet?"

You were considering faking a sudden illness when your phone buzzed. Dr. Gojo's name lit up your screen with a video call request. You hadn't even suggested a video call—he was truly committing to this.

"Oh, that's him now!" Your mother said, clapping her hands together. "Put him on speaker!"

Before you could protest, you were surrounded by a sea of curious relatives as you answered the call. The screen filled with Dr. Gojo's face, and—oh god—he was actually in scrubs, in what looked like a real operating room.

"Hey, my love," he said as if it was the most natural thing in the world, and the casual nickname hit you like a train, making you forget your own name. You felt your cheeks flush and it didn’t help that he somehow managed to look unfairly handsome even under the surgical lights. "Sorry I couldn't make it. We had an emergency valve replacement come in."

"Are you... actually in surgery right now?" you asked.

"Just finished!" He tilted the phone slightly to show a glimpse of a team of medical staff behind him, all of whom waved. One even gave a thumbs up. "Thought I'd catch you before dessert. Is that your family I see?"

Your entire extended family crammed themselves into frame, cooing and waving at your "doctor boyfriend" who was dedicated enough to call from work.

"Oh my god, he's gorgeous," your cousin said.

"Dr. Gojo," your mother pushed forward, "we're so disappointed you couldn't join us. Though of course, saving lives comes first!"

"Please, call me Satoru," he said, flashing that unfairly attractive smile of his. "And I'm more disappointed than anyone. I was really looking forward to trying your famous apple pie that your daughter keeps telling me about."

Your mother clutched her chest, delighted. You had never once mentioned her apple pie to him.

"Are those Christmas decorations I see in the OR?" your aunt squinted at the screen.

And indeed, there were actual Christmas lights strung up in the background. Either this hospital was very festive, or he'd gone to ridiculous lengths for this act.

"We try to keep the holiday spirit alive, even here," he said, then suddenly looked off-screen. "Oh, looks like we have another emergency coming in." Dramatic beeping noises increased in the background. "I'm so sorry, but duty calls. It was lovely meeting you all!"

"Such a dedicated young man," your mother sighed after you ended the call.

"So handsome too," Aunt Marie added. "Those eyes!"

You slumped in your chair, caught between mortification and amusement. He really didn't have to go that far—the Christmas lights in the OR? The perfectly timed “emergency”? The entire surgical team playing along? It was almost impressive.

Your phone buzzed with a text: 'How'd I do? The lights were my colleague's idea. They says Merry Christmas, by the way. Your family seems nice.'

Another buzz, a separate message: 'Also, I expect a slice of that famous apple pie at the café tomorrow. After that performance, I think I've earned it.'

You typed back: 'You are absolutely insufferable. That was completely over the top.'

His response came almost instantly: 'Is that any way to talk to your dedicated doctor boyfriend who just saved a life AND charmed your entire family? I'm hurt.'

Despite yourself, you smiled.

Your phone buzzed one more time: 'By the way, your cousin already found my hospital's public contact info and sent a friend request. Should I accept? I feel like a committed boyfriend would.'

You groaned, burying your face in your hands. He was absolutely loving this.

Way too much.

The next morning, you weren't surprised when he showed up at his usual 7:15, despite it being his day off. What did surprise you was that he was still wearing scrubs. They were rumpled, like he'd been wearing them for a while.

"Please tell me you didn't actually work all night just to make that video call more convincing," you said as he approached the counter.

"You know, I am a doctor in real life, right? This isn't just a cover for your mom." He smirked. "But anyway, just finished an actual emergency shift." He glanced at the paper bag you had waiting next to his usual sugary coffee. "Is that… what I think it is?"

"Your well-earned reward for yesterday's Oscar-worthy performance." You handed him both coffee and pie. "Though I still can't believe you got your entire surgical team to play along."

"Bold of you to assume I had to ask." He took a bite of the pie and his eyes widened slightly. "Okay, your mom's reputation is deserved. This is actually amazing."

"Yeah, well, enjoy it while it lasts, because—" You hesitated, took a deep breath, and decided to just rip the bandage off. "She invited you to dinner. Tomorrow."

He paused mid-bite. "Oh?"

"I told her you're probably busy—"

"What time?"

You stared at him. "What?"

"What time is dinner?" He took another bite of pie, looking perfectly casual about the whole thing. "I actually have Sunday evening off, and this pie has convinced me your mom's cooking is worth experiencing in person."

"You can't be serious."

"Why not?" He shrugged. "I've already met them virtually. Might as well complete the experience. Unless you're worried I'll embarrass you?"

"I'm worried you'll be too convincing again," you said. "My mom's already planning our wedding, by the way. She told me this morning that your 'dedication to work' proves you'd be a good husband."

"Well, I'd hate to disappoint a future mother-in-law."

"This isn't funny!"

"It's a little funny." He leaned against the counter, grinning. "Come on, one dinner. I promise to be slightly less charming this time."

"Somehow I doubt that's possible," you said before you could stop yourself.

His smile widened. "Was that a compliment?"

"That was a complaint about your inability to do anything halfway." You busied yourself with wiping down the already clean counter. "But fine. Sunday at seven. Try not to bring Christmas lights this time."

"No promises." He pushed off from the counter, taking his coffee and pie. "Oh, and by the way?"

"Hmm?"

"I accepted your cousin's friend request. She's already invited me to your family's New Year's party."

He was halfway to the door when he paused, turning back with an expression that was softer than his usual teasing smile. "You look pretty today, by the way. The new sweater suits you."

You froze, your heart skipping a beat. You hadn't even realized he'd noticed you'd changed from your usual work shirt into a cozy sweater for your afternoon classes.

He was out the door before you could stammer out a response, leaving you to wonder what exactly you had gotten yourself into. And why one simple, genuine compliment made your heart race more than all his dramatic boyfriend performances combined.

⋆꙳•❅•̩❅*̩‧͙ *̩❆₊˚｡❆

Sunday evening found you pacing a worn path in the carpet by your parents' front door, checking your phone every two minutes. 7:15 came and went—apparently his almost unnervingly precise timing only applied to coffee runs.

You tried to convince yourself it was fine, that doctors had unpredictable schedules, but a nervous flutter had taken up residence in your stomach.

At 7:20, your mom’s worried, "Maybe he got called into surgery?" was interrupted by the doorbell. You took a deep breath, smoothing down your dress, and opened the door.

Standing there was Dr. Gojo—Satoru, you supposed you should call him now—looking slightly disheveled in a way that somehow only emphasized his unfairly attractive features. His white dress shirt, though slightly untucked at the waist, bore the clear signs of a hurried ironing, and he was carrying what looked like an expensive bottle of wine—definitely not the kind you’d find at the corner store.

"I'm so sorry," he said, running a hand through his already slightly tousled white hair. "Emergency consultation ran late, and then traffic was—"

"It's fine," you interrupted, a wave of relief washing over you. He’d actually come. "Really. You didn't have to—"

But the rest of your sentence disappeared into a surprised squeak as he stepped forward, closing the small gap between you. He leaned in and gently pressed a kiss to your cheek, his free hand settling naturally on your waist, just above your hip, as if he’d done it a hundred times before.

"Hi," he whispered against your ear, and you could hear the smile in his voice. "Missed you today at the café."

You stood frozen, brain short-circuiting from the casual intimacy of it all. This wasn't part of the plan. You hadn't discussed... this. The way his hand felt warm through your dress, how his cologne made you slightly dizzy, how natural it felt to have him this close. It was as if your body already knew this was right, even if your mind was still scrambling to catch up.

"I... you..." Words. You needed words. "You're late."

He pulled back just enough to give you that familiar amused look. "And you're blushing."

Before you could even process that observation—or the fact that your heart was currently attempting to beat its way out of your chest—your mother appeared behind you. "Satoru! We're so glad you could make it!"

He smoothly stepped past you to greet your parents, all charm and apologies for his lateness, seamlessly weaving a plausible story about a last-minute emergency consult and unexpected traffic. He shook your father’s hand with just the right amount of respectful firmness and charmed your mother with a compliment about her festive decorations. All while he left you standing in the doorway, slightly dazed, trying to remember how to perform basic human functions like breathing and blinking.

The slight smirk he threw over his shoulder as he joined the others in the living room told you he knew exactly what he'd done.

Insufferable man.

The dinner was simultaneously the longest and shortest evening of your life. Satoru slipped into the role of doting boyfriend with an unsettling ease, weaving medical anecdotes (carefully tailored for a non-medical audience) and charming compliments into the conversation like he'd been rehearsing for weeks. He even managed to compliment Aunt Marie’s notoriously sweet cheesecake without visibly wincing.

He sat close enough that your legs brushed under the table, his hand finding its way to your knee during your mother's third attempt to bring up wedding venues (she was already browsing bridal magazines online, you’d noticed). The casual touch, which should have made you incredibly nervous, instead felt strangely good, like a shared secret between the two of you in the midst of the family chaos.

"And how did you two actually meet?" your aunt asked over dessert.

"She makes the best coffee in the city," Satoru answered smoothly, his thumb drawing absent circles on your thigh beneath the tablecloth. "Though it took me months to work up the courage to say more than my order."

You nearly choked on your wine. He was mixing truth and fiction so seamlessly you almost believed it yourself.

Every story he told had just enough reality to make you question your own memory. He mentioned how you study between customers, but added details about imaginary conversations. He even talked about your first "date" with such specificity that you found yourself half-believing it had happened.

His hand never left your leg for long, occasionally squeezing gently when your relatives’ questions became too invasive. Somehow, he’d effortlessly positioned himself as both the charming guest and the attentive boyfriend, deflecting awkward questions with a disarming smile. And you’d never been so grateful for anything in your life as you were for him breaking the pattern on that random, rainy Monday morning.

"He even helped me with pathophysiology," you found yourself saying, leaning into him slightly, enjoying it. Two could play at this game.

"She didn't need much help," he replied, his voice laced with a warmth that sounded genuinely proud. It made your heart flutter. "Just someone to hold her flashcards while she made my ridiculously sweet coffee."

Your father, who hadn't said much all evening, finally smiled. "She works too hard sometimes."

"She does," Satoru agreed, his hand sliding just a fraction higher on your thigh under the table. "Though that's one of the things I admire most about her." A wave of heat rushed to your face, and you quickly looked away, focusing on a particularly uninteresting spot on the tablecloth. This is getting out of hand.

As the conversation shifted to some other topic—something about your uncle's questionable golf swing—you leaned in slightly, whispering just loud enough for him to hear, "You're awfully charming."

He leaned in closer, his voice dropping lower so that only you could hear. "Funny, you don't seem to hate it." You felt your cheeks burn even hotter now.

By the time dinner ended, your mother was completely smitten, your aunts were bickering over who would host the next family gathering (with Satoru as the guest of honor, of course), and your cousin had somehow convinced him to follow her Instagram—and had already tagged him in three separate stories.

It was all too smooth, too perfect, too real.

The way he helped you clear the table, his hand brushing the small of your back in a casual, yet intimate touch as he passed. How he effortlessly recalled every detail you’d ever mentioned about your family, from your grandmother’s obsession with crossword puzzles to your father’s love of bad puns. The soft, lingering looks he gave you when he thought no one was watching, filled with an emotion you couldn't quite decipher.

"You're very good at this," you said as you stood side by side at the sink, washing dishes after dinner.

"At what?"

"Playing pretend."

His hands paused for just a moment. "Who says I'm pretending?"

The wine glass you were drying slipped from your suddenly nerveless fingers. You managed to catch it before it shattered on the tile floor, but not before making enough noise to draw his attention.

"Hey." His hand was immediately at your waist, steadying you. "You okay?"

"Fine! I'm fine, just—" You set the glass down carefully, very aware of how close he was standing. When you turned to face him, you found yourself effectively trapped between his broad frame and the hard edge of the kitchen counter. "Slippery hands. From the... soap."

"Hmm." His eyes searched your face, and for a fleeting moment, you thought—you could have sworn—his gaze flickered down to your lips before returning to meet your eyes. "You know, for someone who spends all day handling hot liquids, you've seemed very clumsy tonight."

"Maybe I'm just… distracted.”

You could feel the warmth of his breath on your face as he leaned infinitesimally closer, his eyes fixed on yours. One hand came up to gently brush a stray strand of hair from your cheek, his fingertips grazing your skin, the contact sending a shiver down your spine. "By what?"

"You're doing it again," you whispered.

"Doing what?"

"Being too convincing."

A slow, almost hesitant smile spread across his face. It was a smile that reached his eyes, a smile that felt utterly real, utterly intimate, making your heart stutter in your chest. "Perhaps," he whispered, his voice barely more than a breath against your skin, "maybe I'm not trying to convince anyone anymore."

You could feel his breath ghosting over your lips, the slight tremor in his hand where it rested on your waist, the way the kitchen suddenly felt too warm, too small, too—

"Who wants coffee?" your mother's voice carried from the dining room, making you both jump apart. Satoru cleared his throat, taking a hasty step back, his hand dropping from your waist.

The rest of dinner passed in a surreal haze, neither of you quite able to forget the charged moment in the kitchen. What was that? You kept replaying the scene in your mind. His hand on your waist, his breath on your lips, the sudden shift in his eyes. It had felt… different. More real than any of the playacting.

It wasn't until your aunt, after a drawn out round of goodbyes and air kisses, finally got up to leave that anyone noticed the shift in the weather. "Oh my goodness," your mother gasped, pulling back the curtains. "When did it start snowing?"

Outside, the world had transformed into a winter wonderland that would've been charming under different circumstances. At least a foot of snow covered everything, still falling heavily in thick, white sheets.

"The weather alert says it's going to continue all night," your father reported, checking his phone. "They're advising against any travel. Roads are already getting bad."

Your mother immediately switched into hostess mode. "You absolutely can't drive in this, Satoru. These roads won't be plowed until morning, at the earliest."

"I'm sure I can—" he started.

"Absolutely not," she interrupted. "You'll stay here tonight. Both of you."

You nearly choked on air. "Mom—"

"Don't be silly, dear," she said, already bustling towards the hallway. "You can take your old room, of course. It's all made up. Satoru," she called over her shoulder, "I'll go find some spare cloths for you." Then, turning back to you, she added, "And honey, you still have some things in your old room, so it'll be just like old times!"

Old times? What old times? Your childhood bedroom with those old embarrassing school photos and faded posters of your first boyband crush that you’d somehow never gotten around to taking down? This was not part of the plan. This was definitely not part of the plan.

He wasn't supposed to see that side of you.

As you counted down the seconds until you completely died from embarrassment your parents bustled off to prepare the rooms, leaving you and Satoru alone again. He leaned against the window, watching the snow fall, a small smile playing at his lips.

"Convenient weather we're having," you said suspiciously.

He raised an eyebrow. "Are you implying I somehow arranged a snowstorm?"

"At this point, I wouldn't put it past you."

His laugh was soft and warm. "As flattered as I am by your faith in my abilities, even I can't control the weather." He glanced at you. "Though I have to admit, this is working out better than my original plan of pretending my car wouldn't start."

"You're impossible," you groaned.

"So I've been told." He pushed off from the window, moving closer. He stopped just inches away, until you could feel the heat from his body. His gaze dropped—or you thought it did, your pulse quickening at the mere possibility—to your lips for the briefest of moments before returning to meet your eyes. You blinked, trying to clear your head. No, it couldn't be. "Though I notice you're not exactly complaining about the situation."

Before you could formulate a witty retort (or even a coherent thought, for that matter), your mother’s voice rang out from upstairs, effectively putting an end to whatever was about to happen. "I found some spare clothes, Satoru! And honey," she called down, "your old band t-shirts are still in your dresser!"

You covered your face with your hands. "Please forget everything she's about to show you."

"Now how could I possibly pass up the chance to see teenage you's fashion choices?"

You peaked through your fingers to find him smirking, looking far too delighted by this turn of events. This was going to be a very long night.

⋆꙳•❅•̩❅*̩‧͙ *̩❆₊˚｡❆

"I really can sleep on the floor," Satoru offered for the third time, shifting his weight awkwardly in the doorway of your childhood bedroom. He looked around, taking in your teenage decorating choices, and you could practically hear the gears turning in his head.

"Don't be ridiculous." You tried to sound casual as you smoothed down the NASA bedsheets you'd had since high school on your small bed, that suddenly looked barely big enough for one, let alone two adults. "We're both adults. We can share a bed without it being weird."

He was quiet for a moment, and when you glanced up, you found him studying your teenage self's wall decorations with poorly hidden amusement. It was a chaotic mixture of faded movie posters (mostly featuring heartthrobs from your early teens), band posters (an ambarrasing One Direction poster taking center stage), and a poorly crafted periodic table, complete with hand-drawn elements and color-coded categories.

"Nice periodic table," he finally said.

"Shut up," you muttered, throwing a pillow at him. He caught it easily, because of course he did. "Some of us were nerds before med school."

You turned to your old closet, pulling out one of those oversized band t-shirts you'd lived in during high school. You gripped the hem of your sweater, suddenly very aware of his presence in the small room.

You could feel his eyes on you, a weight on your back, and you could feel the heat creeping up your neck. You paused, your fingers frozen on the soft knit. "Um… could you…?" you trailed off, not wanting to meet his gaze.

He didn't say anything, didn't move. You could practically feel his gaze burning into your back. Finally, you turned, holding your band t-shirt protectively in front of you. "Seriously. Turn around."

He blinked. "You know, I am a doctor. I've seen it all."

"Still," you insisted, your cheeks flushing. "Turn. Around."

He sighed, but finally turned his back, though the lingering amusement in his eyes told you he was still enjoying the situation immensely.

“You’re enjoying this way too much,” you muttered, pulling the t-shirt over your head. You smoothed it down, then took a deep breath.

"I would never," he said.

"You can turn around now."

He turned, his face carefully composed, though a telltale twitch at the corner of his mouth gave him away. His eyes traveled from the hem of the shirt to your face, making your heart stutter. "You look… cute."

"You're a terrible liar.”

You both settled into bed with careful movements, lying rigid as boards, backs facing each other in a vain attempt at maintaining some sort of personal space. The mattress, however, had other plans. It dipped under his weight, creating a subtle slope that kept trying to draw you toward the center—toward him.

Your childhood bed, which had seemed perfectly adequate when you were sixteen, now felt absurdly small. You pressed against the edge, but it was no use, there couldn't have been more than a few inches between your back and his. You could feel the heat of his body, warming the small space between you, his every breath, the subtle shift of the sheets when he moved.

The silence stretched, filled only with the sound of falling snow outside your window and your own heartbeat. It felt so loud, you were certain he could hear it.

"Thank you," you finally whispered into the darkness. "For tonight. For all of it. You didn't have to do any of this."

The bed shifted as he turned over. After a moment's hesitation, you did too, finding yourself face to face with him in the dim light of the streetlamp filtering through your old curtains. His hair was disheveled from the pillow, his expression softer than you'd ever seen it.

"It was fun," he said simply, his breath warm against your cheek.

A small laugh escaped your lips. "Fun? My mom interrogated you about your entire medical history, my dad made you look at his coin collection for an hour, and my cousin tried to show you every embarrassing photo of me from middle school."

"The braces years were particularly charming."

You kicked his shin lightly under the covers. "Shut up."

He grinned, the warmth in his eyes visible even in the dim light. "I mean it, though. Your family is… lively."

"That's a polite way of saying chaotic."

"They care about you. It's nice."

You studied his face, searching for the truth in his words. "Why did you really come tonight? You could have easily found an excuse to avoid this disaster of a family dinner."

"Would you believe me if I said I wanted to?"

"No," you said. "Nobody wants to spend their evening being questioned by my parents and subjected to my aunt's weird baking."

He was quiet for a moment, his eyes never leaving yours. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, more serious. "Maybe I wanted to understand you better. See where you came from. Meet the people who made you... you."

Your heart stuttered in your chest. "Why would you care about any of that?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

You stared at him, suddenly very aware of how close you were, how little space there was between you in this too-small bed. "No," you whispered. "It's not obvious at all."

"Then I must be doing a terrible job of showing you."

Your heart was racing now, your voice barely audible. "Showing me what?"

Before you could respond, he shifted, until he was hovering above you. Your breath caught at the change, at how his white hair fell forward framing his face, at how his eyes seemed to hold entire galaxies in them.

And then he kissed you.

The kiss was nothing like the casual touch of lips from before. It was soft, sweet, and achingly tender at first. He moved against you slowly, his lips parting slightly, inviting you to deepen the kiss. You met his silent invitation, your own lips parting in response. One hand cupped your face, his thumb gently stroking your cheek, while the other braced against the mattress, supporting his weight.

Then, with a soft sigh, he deepened the kiss, his lips moving against yours with a gentle urgency that made your heart ache with a longing you hadn’t known you carried. He pulled you closer, just a fraction, the kiss becoming more urgent, more demanding, yet still laced with a surprising tenderness.

You could feel the rapid thump of his heart against your own chest but then, just as suddenly as it began, he pulled back, breaking the kiss. He didn't move far, though, remaining close enough that you could still feel his breath on your face, see the rapid rise and fall of his chest. "Still think I'm just playing pretend?"

This time, you didn't hesitate. You were the one who moved forward, your hand sliding into his hair, the soft strands tangling around your fingers, pulling him back down to you. His surprised intake of breath was quickly lost as your lips met again.

This kiss was different—deeper, more urgent, six months of watching and waiting poured into a single moment. He made a low sound in his throat as your fingers tightened in his hair, urging him closer.

His own hand slid from your cheek to the back of your neck, his fingers pressing gently into the sensitive skin there. The weight of him pressed you into the mattress, his warmth seeping through the thin fabric of your band t-shirt.

"I've wanted to do that since the first time you rolled your eyes at my coffee order," he said against your lips, his voice rough in a way that sent shivers down your spine.

"That long?" You tried to sound teasing, but it came out breathless instead.

He smiled against your lips. "Longer, probably." He pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of your mouth, then another to your jawline. "Though watching you try to diagnose yourself with every terrible disease I mentioned was pretty entertaining, too."

You groaned, burying your face in the crook of his neck. "You're never going to let me live that down, are you?"

"Never," he agreed, pressing a kiss to your temple. Then, quieter, more intimate, "But I've got plenty of time to make it up to you."

His lips trailed down your neck, each gentle press sending shivers through your body. When he reached the collar of your t-shirt, he paused, his fingers toying with the hem. "Can I?"

You nodded, not trusting your voice, and he slowly, teasingly, pushed the fabric up, revealing your stomach inch by inch. The first brush of his lips against your bare skin made you gasp, your fingers tightening reflexively in his silky hair.

He took his time, pressing kisses to your belly, your ribs, the valley between your breasts. His tongue darted out, tasting your skin, leaving trails of fire in its wake. Your back arched, subtly at first, but with increasing urgency as his lips and hands explored your skin.

His fingers, still toying with the hem of your shirt, finally slipped beneath the fabric. He traced the curve of your waist, the swell of your breasts, leaving goosebumps in their wake. When his thumbs brushed over your nipples, you couldn't suppress the moan that escaped your lips. "More," you whispered, the word barely audible, but he heard it, his eyes flicking up to meet yours.

"You sure?"

"Yes," you breathed. "Please."

His fingers hooked into the waistband of your sleeping shorts. Your heart raced, your skin flushed, every nerve ending racing with the promise of what was to come.

He dragged the fabric down your legs, the cool air hitting your heated skin making you shiver. He settled between your thighs, his broad shoulders forcing your legs wider, and lifted one of your legs over his shoulder, his kisses trailing down your inner thigh. And then his mouth was on you, and the world fell away.

⋆꙳•❅•̩❅*̩‧͙ *̩❆₊˚｡❆

The next morning felt like stepping into a dream—a world where Dr. Satoru Gojo, the man you’d spent six months convinced was silently diagnosing you with rare diseases, was actually just a man utterly smitten with you.

It was as if a blurry lens had finally snapped into focus, revealing a picture so obvious you almost laughed. All those intense stares, the carefully timed coffee shop visits, the way he’d linger at your counter, even helping you study—it had never been about mysterious illnesses or professional concern.

He’d simply been trying to be near you, and you’d been too busy inventing medical mysteries to notice.

And the most embarrassing part? How obvious it had been to everyone else. Your coworkers’ knowing looks finally made sense, as did your mother’s immediate acceptance of him as your “boyfriend.” Even his colleagues had been in on it, helping stage that ridiculous Christmas video call just to make you smile.

When you later confessed your obliviousness to your coworkers, their reactions ranged from “Finally!” to a bewildered “Wait, you mean he wasn’t actually your boyfriend this whole time?”

Over breakfast, as he effortlessly charmed your mother into accepting a third helping of pancakes he casually dropped the bomb to your mom, “I actually rearranged my entire consultation schedule to match her shifts. I don't even like coffee."

Your mind went blank for a moment. He… what? Then, the implications crashed down on you. He’d rearranged his entire work schedule just to see you. And he hated coffee. He’d only ever ordered those sugary lattes because… because of you.

A blush crept up your neck, and you couldn't believe how adorably dense you’d been.

He met your gaze then, his blue eyes softening in that way that always made your heart flutter. Only now you understood what that look truly meant. He hadn’t been studying you. He’d been cherishing you with his gaze. He’d wanted to see you, to be near you, to simply be with you. And the realization made you ridiculously, undeniably happy.

Satoru walked over to you from where he stood next to your mom and leaned down, his breath warm against your temple, and pressed a soft kiss there. You closed your eyes, savoring the simple touch. God, you wanted more. You wanted him closer, his arms around you, his lips on yours again, just like last night.

You'll probably never get enough of that.

He pulled back slightly, his hand cupping your cheek, his thumb gently stroking your skin. His gaze held yours, a soft smile playing on his lips. Then he whispered three words that made your world stand still, "I love you."

Three little words.

But those three words little changed everything.

It felt as though time itself had stopped. He loves me, the thought echoed in your mind, a fragile, beautiful sound you couldn't quite believe was real. You’d imagined this moment countless times in secret, tucked away in the quiet corners of your heart, but you'd never truly believed it could happen.

And in that moment, surrounded by the warmth of his hand, the sweet scent of pancakes, and the soft morning light filtering through the kitchen window, you knew you’d never been happier in your entire life.

And most importantly, you didn't have to pretend anymore. He wasn't just someone you were pretending to date for your family's sake. He was actually your boyfriend. Really, truly your boyfriend. And what had once felt like a performance suddenly felt very much like coming home.

But the best part? At exactly 7:15 the next morning, he still walked in, ordered his usual diabetes in a cup, and watched you work with those intense blue eyes. Only now, when you handed him his drink, he'd pull you close for a kiss that tasted of caramel and cinnamon.

"You know," he said one morning, watching you make his order, "for someone smart enough to get into med school, you were remarkably dense about this whole thing."

"Says the man who spent six months staring instead of just asking me out."

"I was building suspense."

"You were being creepy."

"Maybe," he said, then smilled. "But it worked, didn't it?"

And really, you couldn't argue with that. Though you did make his next latte extra sweet, just to watch him pretend to enjoy it.

After all, some things were worth suffering through overly sugary coffee for.

masterlist + tip jar

author's note — if you're familiar with a certain story on my blog, then no you didn't see this story, and this is definitely not a healthier version of another couple, and i absolutely do not have a thing for medical AUs, okay thank you.

anway, this was supposed to get spicier, but time got away from me because i really wanted to share it with you all for christmas so this is only suggestive, but i hope you enjoyed it either way. & thank you so much for reading this far !! your support means everything to me.

wishing you all a very merry christmas !! hope your holidays are filled with sweet coffee, warm embraces, and maybe even a handsome doctor of your own <3

ps: if you want to get notifications for future updates, you can join my taglist here!

tags — @fayuki @starmapz @snowsilver2000 @starlightanyaaa @sxnkuna

@cocomanga @nanamis-baker @rosso-seta @shervinss @chiyokoemilia

@janbannan @bloopsstuff

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